


I’ve Got You (Under My Skin)

by mia6363



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (because you know serial killer), Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark Grey Morality, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Description, Graphic Description of Murder and Mentality Behind Murder, M/M, Meet-Cute, None of the main cast DIES but the tragedy comes from the nature of having a criminal in your life, OC character deaths, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, Weird dreams, Wet Dream, slow burn tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 16:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21460900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia6363/pseuds/mia6363
Summary: “Thanks for waiting with me. Even if you’re a stone-cold killer,” her smile never dipped, never wavered as Finstock’s eyebrows raised, “it beats being alone in the dark.”“Hey,” he grinned, “you could be a killer too.”She grinned and hit his chest, a light tap.“Thank you.I hate that automatic,women aren’t likely to be violent murderers.” She rolled her eyes and Finstock’s heart thudded with the motion. “Anyone can do anything.”
Relationships: Bobby Finstock/Kira Yukimura, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 49
Kudos: 113
Collections: Finstock's Fucked Up Long Weekend 2019





	I’ve Got You (Under My Skin)

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Graphic Murder, thoughts/methods of murder from the POV of the murderer, DARK grey morality folks

“I swear, nothing beats hot apple cider on a cold day.” Stiles sighed as he handed his dad’s cup to him, sidling up on the bleachers. He took a sip of his own. “God damn. That’s perfect.”

His father’s eyes crinkled at the side. He smiled like he wanted to swear with his son, but being a Sheriff in a small town meant that had to wait until they were behind closed doors. 

“Doesn’t it get colder in DC than here?” 

Stiles straightened his scarf. 

“Semantics. Cold is cold.” 

The Bureau gave generous holidays, so Stiles never had to take off in the winter. Instead, he used his vacation days at the start of September so he could spend a week back in Beacon Hills. He always made sure to double check the school calendar so he could make it to the first lacrosse game. 

Nostalgia numbed his cheeks, a pink flush combatting the cold. 

He didn’t always love lacrosse. In fact, his first year of playing he _hated_ it. He hated the drills, he hated the jocks who had natural athletic talent who didn’t wheeze, and he hated constantly sitting on the bench. Eventually, he got to play. Eventually, his dad would give him hugs after a game instead of a _maybe next game_ with a sad smile. Stiles stopped hating the elation and began savoring it. 

He stood with the rest of the crowd as the teams ran out, the pit band going wild on the drums and brass. Always out last, yet no less important, was Coach Finstock. Bittersweet affection shuddered through Stiles’s body at the sight of the maniac, of his wild black hair and big teeth, at the sound of his voice echoing across the field. White fog blew out of peoples’ mouths, a cheering roar shook the bleachers. 

Coach never reacted to the crowd more than a brief grin before he turned his back to the bleachers, one hundred percent focused on the game. 

Except, to Stiles’s shock, he lingered, to a woman who was up on the fence dividing the bleachers from the field. Her boots were hooked a few feet above the ground, her elbows resting on the top. The Coach’s eyes lingered on her, his smile widening for a moment before he turned his back. 

Stiles sat down with the rest of the crowd. His dad grunted, sipping his cider. 

“Who is that?” 

Stiles nodded toward the woman. She jumped back down to the ground, her fingers clinging to the fence for a few seconds before she let go. His dad followed his gaze, to a woman wrapped in a puffy jacket and scarf, her hair whipping in the wind. 

“Kira?” His father’s smile widened. “That’s Bobby’s girlfriend.” 

Stiles’s mouth dropped open. 

“His _what_?” Someone scored, and Stiles forgot to stand up with the rest of the crowd. “When did this happen?” 

::::

It happened on a dark and stormy night three years ago. 

California rain was never given in moderation like other places in the United States. When it rained, it poured for days on end to make up for the months of clear blue skies that followed. Finstock had studied the weather patterns and once the first drop appeared on his windshield on his way back to Beacon Hills, he grinned, wider when a pitter-patter turned into a torrential drone. 

His summer fishing trip had been a success, and Finstock felt refreshed, reinvigorated. His skin was comfortable on his body again, and when he breathed the air tasted floral—

The sudden appearance of brake lights on one of the Beacon Hills back roads made him slow. An old green Volvo was pulled to the side of the road, and the driver’s door was open, the hood up. A thin figure was bent under the hood. 

Finstock checked his watch. It was one-thirty in the morning

“Shit.” He pulled over, putting on his hazards. “Shit.” 

The moment he opened his door the little bell started ringing, a _ding-ding-ding,_ to say _the door is open, moron._ Finstock fumbled for his glove compartment for his emergency flashlight and retractable umbrella. 

Rain hit the pavement with such speed that a permanent misty cloud hovered above the asphalt. Finstock’s boots sent up strings of water, and he turned on the flashlight, aimed towards the ground. 

“Hey,” he called out over the hissing rain, “everything okay?” The figure hit their head on the hood, their hand flying up to press against their forehead. He saw that she was a young woman. He slowed, just barely able to make out her wide eyes and slightly defensive body posture. “Do you need any help?”

She was soaked to the bone, her hair plastered to the sides of her face. When she made an attempt to push it back, a light spray of rain flicked across Finstock’s chest. 

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Fuck.” She leaned her hip against the car as Finstock drew close, holding the umbrella over her. She wiped her face. “Thanks. It just… started overheating out of nowhere and I just had to,” she waved her hands, her breath shaking, “pull over. This car got up the entire state with _no problems_ and when I’m twenty minutes away from where I need to be, it does this.” 

Finstock handed her the umbrella. 

“I can take a look. Can you hold this for me?” She nodded, and Finstock slipped the small flashlight in his mouth, holding the light steady between his teeth as he peered under the hood. She moved closer to him, her fingers on the side of the hood as she leaned forward to keep the umbrella over him, flinching when rain poured down her back. Finstock spotted the coolant tank and a disconnected hose. “Looks like antifreeze is leaking. Do you have more of it?” 

She nodded, digging around in the back of her car. He took the bottle when she came back and poured a small amount in, connecting the hose. 

“How bad is it?” 

She chewed on her thumbnail. She was young, Finstock wasn’t sure _how_ young, but definitely not his age. 

“Well… if the hose dislodged already, it will probably do it again. Quicker, this time.” She swore under her breath, shivering. “Do you have someone you can call to pick you up?” 

“Y-Yeah.” She sighed. “I didn’t want to call him in the middle of the night. I’m _so close,_ like twenty minutes _tops_!” Her sigh misted out in front of her. She jerked her head back to her car, her phone in hand. She handed him his umbrella. “I’m just gonna call him. It won’t be long.” 

Finstock nodded and took a few steps back, to give the illusion of privacy. Her legs were outside in the rain, most of her body in the driver’s seat as she bit her lip. Her foot bounced, and her friend must have picked up. 

_“Hey, Peter,”_ she sighed, _“sorry, I know it’s late. My car broke down and no joke, I’m maybe twenty minutes from your place. GPS says fifteen.” _

The rain was therapeutic, a balm for the mind and earth. The mountain trails he’d spent the past two weeks exploring would be washed away, taking all sorts of debris with it. He went back to his car and by the time he returned, her phone was in her hand. 

“Here,” Finstock held out a towel. “Can your friend come pick you up?” 

“Yeah.” She looked up at him, at the towel slung over his arm and the umbrella held up to keep them both out of the rain. “Um,” even as she shivered and took the blanket from his arm, her cheeks bled red. “I don’t know if you want to wait with me or anything. You don’t have to, I mean, I’m fine by myself, he’s not far but, if _you want to,_ I have snacks?” She slapped her hand over her face. “What I mean is _thank you.”_ She patted her face dry. “Thank you for… stopping.” 

_Cute_ was a word that Finstock rarely shuffled into his vocabulary. He was more about the obscenity, a violent curse, and private thoughts of tranquility, always covered up by a grin and shout. _Cute_ was a word he’d use for the calendars of kittens and puppies that the new math teacher kept at her desk. _Cute_ was something soft, fluffy, and unattainable for a man like Finstock. _Cute_ belonged to people who didn’t go on the kind of fishing trips that cleared Finstock’s mind before the school year. 

“What kind of shithead would I be to just keep driving?” 

Her face dropped in surprise, and right when Finstock was going to pull back, she smiled. 

“An everyday shithead, I guess.” 

That bubbly, pink, _soft_ word loomed over him. _Cute._

“What kind of snacks do you have?” 

That was how he found himself sitting in her passenger’s seat, a bag of treats between them. M&Ms crunched in their mouths and her eyes slid to his, holding his gaze with a strange, playful tension that made Finstock’s stomach twist. He couldn’t tell if it was pleasant or not. 

“Thanks for waiting with me. Even if you’re a stone-cold killer,” her smile never dipped, never wavered as Finstock’s eyebrows raised, “it beats being alone in the dark.” 

“Hey,” he grinned, “you could be a killer too.” 

She grinned and hit his chest, a light tap. 

_“Thank you._ I hate that automatic, _women aren’t likely to be violent murderers._” She rolled her eyes and Finstock’s heart thudded with the motion. “Anyone can do anything.” 

“Don’t dream it,” he grinned to cover up the overwhelming feeling of breathlessness. “Be it.” 

Chocolate lingered on his tongue as rain sluiced down the windshield. Outside was ink-black, while the car had a golden hue. She reached over the divide.

“Kira Yukimura.” 

Her hand was cold, but warmed quickly when he slid his palm against hers. 

“Bobby Finstock.”

::::

Stiles waited by the side door that led to the gym, hands jammed in his pockets and the taste of apple cider still on his tongue. Kid after kid came out, and it wasn’t until the very end that Finstock emerged. He had on his usual red sports jacket and had a slight flush from the showers. He was going to walk right past Stiles, but Stiles gently nudged his arm.

“Hey, Coach.” 

Coach Finstock’s pace stuttered. He turned, his usual grimace melting into surprise. 

“Stilinski?” He grinned and clapped Stiles on the shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?” 

Stiles rolled his eyes. 

“I always try to catch the first game, if work allows.” 

Finstock rolled his eyes. 

“_If work allows,_ Christ, I’m old. Come on,” he jerked his head toward the parking lot. “How’ve you been? Where the hell do you even work? Has your boss retired early to escape from your insanity?” 

Stiles sometimes missed the caustic words from his Coach, a man seemingly preserved in vinegar and booze. Stiles’s other teachers had done fine, he learned and succeeded in their classes… but Coach was something else. He pushed anyone under his care, and it was that _stinging_ personality and drive to keep moving forward that landed Stiles in the FBI before he was twenty-seven. 

During quiet moments in his apartment, when he couldn’t sleep but didn’t want to get out of bed and _work,_ he thought about how he got there. All the little moments and motivations that pushed him into a small apartment in DC, into standing tall among other Agents like he belonged there. 

Finstock was one of those driving forces, a hoarse shout of _do better, keep pushing until you can’t push any more._ It wasn’t just from lacrosse, but also a moment, late on the field in Stiles’s junior year. Finstock had locked up the school after a game and asked the age-old question of _so, what are you gonna do once you’re outta here?_ And Stiles told him, the pipe-dream that still made his dad chuckle. 

Finstock didn’t laugh. Instead, he’d squeezed Stiles’s shoulder, his eyes bright.

_“You’ve got the drive, kid. I don’t doubt you’ll make it there, and when you do,”_ Finstock had grinned, the same smile he wore moments before they won a match, _“I’d hate to be on the other end of your focus.”_

Stiles wondered if Finstock thought back to that time, or if Stiles was another face in a sea of constantly changing students. 

“I’m good.” 

He slipped his hand inside his jacket pocket, to his ID. He flipped back the leather. Gravel crunched under Finstock’s sneakers as he stumbled. 

“Holy shit.” He grinned and Stiles wished he had charm and eloquence to properly say _you helped me do this_ without a crack in his voice and a wobble in his lip. Finstock’s eyes crinkled at the sides. “So, how is it? Tell me everything that isn’t classified.” 

“Its…” Stiles still got flushed whenever he could say, _I’m in the FBI._ “Amazing.” He caught sight of his Jeep and dug in his pocket for his keys. “My boss is _not_ retiring.”

Stiles sighed, too tired to cover it up. Finstock nudged him. 

“What? Is he an asshole?”

Stiles shrugged. 

“He stuck me with a bunch of cold cases. Like _ice_ cold cases that haven’t been solved in over ten years and… sure give it to the youngest kid.” 

Finstock snorted, waving away Stiles’s complaint the same way he would when his legs wobbled after drills. 

“So what?” Stiles blinked at such a rebuke, the shock overriding any anger as Finstock continued. “Fuck ‘em. Solve ‘em and throw that back in their fucking face.” 

Stiles’s lips twitched into a hesitant smile.

“They’re really old cases, Coach.”

“And? Like that’s stopped you before.” 

Even though Stiles absolutely could not discuss the cold cases, even though he was sure Finstock had places to be, Stiles kept trying to form the words that could capture what Finstock’s _nutty_ mentality meant to Stiles. While other agents had boring, run of the mill mentors, Stiles had a Coach who would scream himself hoarse every game. While others had calm meditations, Stiles had old drills and _my dead grandmother would do better_ ringing in his ears. 

Before he had a chance to push something clumsy out of his mouth, Finstock’s eyes left his and his smile softened. 

“Aw shit, sweetheart, you didn’t have to wait for me.” Stiles followed FInstokc’s gaze to the woman from the game, leaning up against Coach’s truck. She had long black hair and brown eyes that never wavered from Coach when he jogged up to her, hugging her close. Stiles kept walking, though kept a polite distance of about five feet away. Coach pulled back. “Kira, this is Stiles, he was a student of mine. Stiles, this is Kira.” 

Kira’s eyes shifted to Stiles. Her smile was warm, _cute,_ in a way that didn’t seem to match Coach at all. She held out her hand. 

“Kira Yukimura.” 

A _ping_ at the name tickled the back of his brain, a sense of _deja vu._ Stiles shook her hand with a smile, one of his practiced ones he used for meetings and briefings. 

“Stiles Stilinski. Good to meet you.” He released her hand, shivering even though he was no longer cold. “It’s late, I’m going to get back home before I freeze to death. It was good seeing you, Coach.” 

He jogged to his Jeep and kept rolling the name _Yukimura_ over in his head, and it wasn’t until he got to the airport that he realized where he’d seen it before. As he killed time staring at magazines and page-turners, he saw the name staring back at him. 

_Sharp Places_ was written in stark white letters across a cracked mask. At the bottom of the paperback was _Kira Yukirmua._

He grabbed it, easily waving away the thirteen dollar price if it meant feeding that _gnawing_ sensation in his mind. He turned past the copyright and publishing information. Before the title was a single page, text in the middle. 

_For anyone who won’t take off their mask, for fear of what’s rotten underneath._

Stiles licked his thumb and turned the page, frowning as he wondered just how _Kira Yukimura_ connected with someone like Coach Finstock. 

:::: 

It started in an overheated Volvo on a dark stormy night, but the _connection_ happened the following week. 

Kira lazed through the dusty stacks in the Beacon Hills Library. She wore her coziest sweater and Peter insisted she take his jacket and scarf as an extra measure. The worst of her cold was over, but Peter worried when it mattered. _You, my dear, matter very much,_ Peter inisted as he looped his scarf around her neck. 

Libraries were always a sanctuary, and Beacon Hills was no different. Kira always stuck to non-fiction. She debated if she wanted to start reading or keep moving when someone tapped her shoulder. 

Kira turned and would have bumped against a shelf of Western Geography books if that same hand hadn’t steadied her with a firm squeeze to her shoulder. The automatic, societally trained bullshit response was to apologize, even though she hadn’t done anything, but then she saw the man’s face. 

“Bobby!” Kira quickly shuffled her books in her arms so she could get her hand free, extending it. “It’s good to see you. What are you doing here?”

Kira cringed as his lips cracked into a smile. 

“Well,” he drew out the word with a dark lilt, shaking her hand, “it _is_ a public library. I was looking for _this._” He reached past her to grab a large book on California vegetation. “It’s good to see you too.” 

The night in her car felt like a dream. She’d been too tired to even _think_ about being charming or cautious. Her mother would have had an aneurysm if she knew Kira had invited a strange man to wait with her and eat candy. When Peter arrived, Bobby put down his umbrella to help run bags to Peter’s trunk, not caring about the rain. Kira had dug in her wallet and cut her cuticle in the process. 

_“Text me,”_ Kira probably looked like a lunatic, soaking wet and hanging out of Peter’s car. She shoved her card into Bobby’s hand. _“I owe you coffee at the very least, all right? Thank you so much.” _

Peter had laughed all the way back to his estate. 

_“You’re too nice, Kira.”_

She’d blushed, still patting herself dry with the towel Bobby insisted she keep. 

_“Only when I want to be.”_

“You sound a little hoarse,” Kira watched Bobby’s smile soften, the lines in his face getting deeper as he took a closer look. She wanted to know what he saw, what details he picked up and the ones that slipped past. “Did you get sick?” 

Kira rolled her eyes. 

“It’s just a cold and it’s almost gone. My voice is always the last to recover.” They’d texted a few times, and conversation quickly devolved into pictures. Kira sent a frog on Peter’s porch, flowers, weeds, and a lizard to him. In return, she received a coffee mug with a chip on the rim, graded quizzes, a sports field, and ants crawling on the sidewalk. It was less about planning coffee and more about random observations and weird haikus that came to them during the day. “Would you want to get coffee now?” Kira wished she could sound less flustered, her voice cracking painfully at the end of the question. “I think I saw a place down the street.” 

“Sure,” Bobby caught a book on the top of Kira’s stack from slipping off, “but you really don’t have to, I wasn’t going to just… leave you there—”

_“Excuse me,”_ they both flinched at a stern voice that cut through their conversation like a knife. One of the librarians glared at them from behind her thick cat-eye glasses. “I would suggest if you can’t keep your voices _down_ that you take your conversation _outside.”_

White-hot shame bloomed in Kira’s cheeks. She felt too young, like she’d been caught under the sheets, reading with a flashlight. 

Bobby rolled his shoulders. 

“I’m finished,” he turned to Kira. “You?” 

“Y-Yeah.” The librarian lead them out of the back stacks. Kira dug her elbow into Bobby’s side and whispered. “I don’t have a library card here.” 

He shook his head and took her books out of his hand. 

“You’re a real a fucking criminal.” She liked the way he talked, how he squared his shoulders with mock-seriousness. “Be cool.” 

Kira grinned as he checked out both of their books, not managing to stifle a snort in time as the librarian sent her an icy glance. Bobby carried the books out of the entrance and Kira burst into laughter. He joined her, with a snicker that dissolved into bubbly giggles that Kira wanted to squeeze out of him. He leaned against his truck and didn’t fight it when Kira took her books back. 

“Where are you from?” Bobby managed the question between gulps of breath. “I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to ask.” 

When Kira met her closest friends, their conversations rarely followed the normal rhythm. The basic starters like names, hometowns, and employment were always forgotten until the last minute.

“I’m from New York, but I’ve lived in Los Angeles for the past five years.” 

Bobby’s lips widened into a delightfully crooked grin. 

“I had a feeling. Your smile is perfect.” 

She summoned her best, most beaming smile to battle the prickling adrenalin of being exposed. 

“If you don’t master smiling your first three months, you’re kicked out.” She thumped a book on his arm. “So, would you like to get coffee? My treat.” 

Bobby held up his hands, like he was shielding himself from fire. 

“Alright, alright, just put that sunny shit away.”

Kira dropped her picture-perfect grin in favor for a relaxed smile, not showing any teeth. 

“Better?” 

Finstock held his palm and fingers out flat, shaking it. _So-so._ He couldn’t tamper down his smile. Kira shoved him, like she’d known him for years instead of just a few days. 

::::

Chris Argent did not hate Stiles Stilinski, no matter what the younger agent might believe. 

Hot coffee warmed his calloused hands through thick ceramic. It was seven in the morning, no one was in the office yet, and Chris enjoyed the serenity. Bureaucratic bullshit often weighed down the daily grind of working in the FBI. Chris knew it was a part of the job, and he tried to break in younger agents as fast as possible. It wouldn’t be like the movies. No one was going to be John McClane. 

Really, it all came down to paperwork. And coffee, decent coffee was a—

Something clattered in Stilinski’s office. _Office, more like a glorified closet,_ Chris thought as he carefully put his coffee down, rolling his steps so his shoes didn’t make a sound. He jerked the door open, the element of surprise crucial, only to immediately deflate. Stiles Stilniski was in his office, with three rolling white boards even though each office was only provided one. Before Chris could think about asking _where_ the other two came from, Stiles jerked around, eyes wide. 

“What the hell are you doing here, Argent?” 

Stiles looked like shit, dark circles under his eyes and coffee grounds stuck in his teeth. Chris spotted a sports bag in the corner with a toothbrush, a change of clothes, and mouthwash. 

“Did you go home this weekend?” 

“Sure,” Stiles kicked the bag behind him, “duh.”

It was too early for _whatever_ Stiles was doing. A headache dug deep roots into the base of Chris’s neck. 

“What the hell are you doing?” 

Stiles scoffed and _Christ, he’s so young_ flickered across Chris’s mind before he could stop it. 

“I’m solving the cold cases, Chris, what the fuck else would I be doing?” 

Chris started off young recruits on cold cases to teach them patience and that, sometimes, things just weren’t solvable. He remembered watching Stilinski progress through the curriculum and read the reports of his sharp attitude and tendency to fight his battles with scathing sarcasm. They gave him to Chris because Chris was a man who could take the wildest horses and tame them. 

“All right,” Chris sighed and leaned against the door frame. “Clean yourself up, take a shower, and let’s go get breakfast.” 

“I’m fine,” Stiles motioned to his three filled white boards. “I have a protein bar somewhere. I got work to do—”

“You’re not going to solve those cases in the next hour. You look like shit, and I bet you smell like it too. Clean up, get a _fresh_ pair of clothes and if you don’t have any, I do. Then we’re going out, you need to see the sun.” Stiles’s jaw clenched and Chris cut him off before the smart ass could keep pushing. “That’s an _order,_ Stilinski.” 

Stiles deflated, his shoulders lowering a few inches before he grabbed his bag. 

“Well fine, if it’s an _order._” 

He shoved past Chris and was out of their office in a matter of seconds. 

With the morning tranquility returning to Chris’s workspace, he glanced at the three white boards of bodies, murder weapons, and locations. Previous recruits had put in the work that was expected of a cold case, which was not that much. The bare minimum to show that you were listening, but nothing substantial.

Chris took a few steps further into Stiles’s office, his fingers running over pages that were still warm from the printer. Post-its stuck to the board had dates, possible motives, and estimated time of deaths versus time of injuries. 

Stiles Stilinski proved to an atypical recruit. 

:::: 

_Are you done torturing children yet?_

Finstock snorted the moment he checked his phone. He saw a few of the kids turn at the noise, a brief motion that was quickly masked, undone. He went into his office so they could stop _pretending_ not to speculate over what made crazy Coach Finstock laugh. He grabbed his jacket, doing his best to get one arm in a sleeve as he typed back. 

_Practice isn’t torture, it’s about honing skills. Yeah, it’s over._

Kira Yukimura was… _cute._ The word hadn’t changed the more he got to know her, and Finstock wasn’t sure if he found that endearing or intimidating. 

She was a journalist from Los Angeles who was best friends with Peter Hale, and often contributed to the books he wrote. She was bubbly, like champagne on a summer night, and yet dark as ink bleeding between old pages. If she forgot to put on her performance face, she’d let little bits of darkness out. A quick joke here, a long look there. The books she’d taken from the library were all non-fiction, true crime and explorations of the darker side of humanity. Histories of poison, cannibalism, exorcisms… the list went on and on when he helped her put them in her car before coffee. 

_Random question_ his phone buzzed, and the little ellipses told Finstock that he didn’t need to respond, she was already working on whatever silly question she had for him. 

_Random question_ previously meant that his night would be playing a word-association game, exchanging strange facts and knowledge he wasn’t aware he picked up until Kira asked the right questions. Texts would become a phone call, which would go on for hours, with Finstock puttering around his house, sipping coffee, and eventually sliding into bed. Still on the phone. 

Kira didn’t have as thick of a sugar coating when she was on the phone. 

_How good are you at dealing with blood?_ Finstock’s fingers tightened around his phone, a short squeeze as another text came in. _Do you faint or get sick?_

_No, I’m a coach in a high contact sport. I see blood all the time._ He waited for the ellipses. His stomach hardened when they didn’t appear. _Why?_

She visited Peter in the summer for three and a half weeks. Her job let her because if she left so many parts of the machine would fall apart. Her words, not his. When they met up on weekends it would take a few hours for her to start peeling back layers of sugar, and Finstock felt like they were both following strange dance instructions. A lazy look here, a gentle prod there, a pitch-black joke and maintained eye contact to catch every _movement_ of expression. Both of them, spinning closer to _something_ and Finstock wasn’t sure _what._

_I need gauze and band-aids. I cut my finger 8 minutes ago and it hasn’t stopped bleeding._ Finstock lunged for the First Aid kit under his desk as her next message buzzed in his hand. _How long does it take for someone to bleed out?_

Finstock was out of the locker room in two minutes, and was peeling down the road in three. 

Peter Hale was a private man, the sole survivor of a tragic fire. He had burns on half his face, and much more on his body. Finstock knew where the Hale Estate was, everyone knew the black cast iron fences, pruned trees and flowerbeds that shielded their owner from the rest of Beacon Hills. Finstock could count on one hand how many times he’d _seen_ Peter Hale. He never spoke to him. 

The Hale land sprawled out in lush green hills, and once the fence ended, winding dirt roads were left. Over one of their many night phone calls, Kira described the guest cottage Peter set up for her. Most of her summer was spent fixing it up with Peter, sanding down wood and constructing furniture, taking breaks for water and cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches. _Everything is so green here,_ Kira would say as she sighed the way people did when they first laid down for the night. The sound of her pulling up blankets and getting comfortable with pillows made his stomach twist, a deep desire that he wasn’t sure he was allowed to feel. 

He pulled onto the small dirt road, not caring about the red _Private Property_ signs that were posted on every tree. 

Kira Yukimura was _cute._

Anyone with eyes would agree with him. The way she slapped his arm to get his attention, her softer smiles when she used an inside joke, and the way her smile never ran out of batteries was _cute._ Friendly. Finstock could do friendly. It was… the other parts of her that made him feel like he was holding a sleek black object carved out of stone, with strange angles that would cut his hands if he moved too fast. 

Gravel crunched as he parked his car, the door hanging open, a _ding-ding-ding_ reminding him that _you need to close the door, moron._ He ignored it. 

Kira Yukimura was beautiful when her eyes held his, when she allowed silence to grow between them when no one else was around. In a crowded coffee shop, she was overflowing with twinkling energy. Once they were in an empty parking lot, leaning against her car, the shimmer flattened into a dull sheen. Her eyes would hold him, and even though he was taller, broader, and stronger… he felt pinned by a tension he was too cowardly to name. 

Wood squeaked under his sneakers, and he knocked once before he tried the front door. It was open. 

“Kira?” Finstock couldn’t remember the last time he was frightened. It felt like a disease, hands around his throat, dread curdling in his stomach. The First Aid kit was clutched in his right hand and he stomped through the quaint cottage. “Kira, I brought a First Aid kit.” 

A slight _thump_ came down the singular hallway. 

“In here.” When Finstock hurried down the hall he noticed other rooms, closets, an open bedroom door, a newly constructed bed frame, and then… blood. A few drops, a pause, then a _large_ splatter, that all led to another door. _Bathroom,_ his brain provided as he opened the door. Light reflected off white tile, shrinking Finstock’s pupils painfully. “Hopefully,” Kira was pale, in a sports bra and pajama pants, “this looks worse than it actually is.” 

Blood was smeared along the white tile and was the most thick in the sink. Kira had a thick cloth wrapped around her hand, and he realized it was a shirt. The only thing she could grab quickly without spreading more blood. 

“Sit.” He pushed her down so she sat on the toilet. Dried blood flaked along her neck and shoulders, an obvious scramble once she realized that she was bleeding much more than expected. He opened the First Aid kit. “What happened?” 

“I put together the bed frame, and it said it required two people but I did all on my own, take that Ikea.” Kira winced as he gently unwrapped her hand. “And the mattress was delivered and you have to cut it out of… well, what’s basically extreme plastic wrap, and,” she shook her head, the more Finstock unrapped, the more blood flowed down her arm, “a slip of scissors. Nothing happened during the entire bed frame construction, and I just wanted to cut some plastic and here I am.” 

She moved her hand once it was free, a defeated gesture. 

Thick, gelatinous clumps of semi-dried blood filled the creases of her palm. It was so thick that it couldn’t dry and flake completely, instead clumping up in dark spots. Finstock didn’t care about his shirt, he cradled her hand against his stomach. He held her index finger, the source of the leak, and his other hand had a damp clump of alcohol-soaked cotton balls. 

“This is going to hurt.”

Kira’s leaned her cheek against the sink, a tired half-smile pulling at Finstock’s heart. 

“I know.” 

It was a shallow cut, more that she skinned off a large surface area. It was half the size of a dime. 

“You’ll be fine.” He was baffled at the wave of relief he felt. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been, how tight he’d been clenching his jaw ever since he saw the first spots of blood in her bedroom. “Hands bleed a lot. Head wounds bleed way more.”

They stood side by side, Kira running her hands under the water in the sink, and Finstock waiting with gauze and wrapping. She turned off the sink, and he patted her hand dry as quick as he could before he quickly covered the wound with a cotton pad. Kira’s fingers covered his hand before he could pull away when he finished. 

“I thought you said blood didn’t bother you.” He made a noise, a mixture of a hum and a grunt because he didn’t trust himself to speak. Her hands were so warm and smooth, her eyes holding him, yet… he didn’t feel trapped. “You’re shaking.” 

She squeezed his fingers, and sure enough they were shivering. Minute, barely noticeable, but they were there. 

“I’m fine with blood.” He _was._ He turned his hand over, squeezing her fingers back. _Return volley,_ he thought. “I guess I prefer seeing yours inside your body.”

They were still holding hands, both of them standing in front of the bathroom sink. Finstock had the ludicrous picture of them brushing their teeth together in the morning, dressed in pajamas and leaning against each other because it was too early to talk. He extinguished that line of thinking as fast he could, and he hoped that he hadn’t given himself away when Kira’s uninjured hand touched his arm. 

“If you don’t like something, you’d tell me, right?” 

Her cheeks had more color in them, much to Finstock’s relief. There was still blood on her neck that had streaked down her bra. He imagined wetting a washcloth, dragging it down her skin. Slowly. Cleaning blood but leaving behind pink skin, flushed from pressure and goosebumps—

Fingers tightened around his wrist. Right. She asked a question. 

“Yes.” He smirked and the tightness under his skin worsened at how her shoulders relaxed, how her smile widened. “I don’t make it a habit of letting my arm be twisted.” 

Kira’s bandaged finger caught on his sleeve. 

“Good,” she said seconds before she kissed him.

_Oh._

That was Finstock’s first thought. His heartbeat had slowed from the staccato beat the blood had kicked into it, and while it quickened, it never reached that pitch. It was steady, a _thud-thud-thud_ of a confident walk. 

_She’s soft._

That was Finstock’s second thought. It was not like most kisses Finstock had ever received. It wasn’t hard, adrenalin knocking their teeth together. It wasn’t a drunken kiss, the sloppy kind where there was too much tongue right away, where words like _saliva_ killed the mood. It was a soft kiss, a gentle press. Not quite a hello-kiss. Finstock closed his eyes and ducked down, just a little, just enough to feel her breath catch against his lips. 

His palm found her cheek, his thumb skimming the hair by her temples. She smiled, he _felt_ it bloom across her lips like sunlight across water. She pulled him closer. When their tongues met, he didn’t think of words like _saliva,_ only _more._

Two kisses turned to three, turned to four, turned to Finstock kissing her cheek when she drew back for breath. 

“Guess you’re okay with that,” Kira breathed, her cheeks red. She blinked, then looked down. Blood slipped free from her finger and had stained his shirt and dripped more onto the floor. “Oh God, this is so unsanitary.” 

Finstock snorted. 

“Definitely.”

He drew her back in for a kiss anyway, tasting her laughter. 

::::

Kira Yukimura had always been… _unique._

Before Kira went to preschool, unique had been a positive description. Kira had one book of bedtime stories that she discarded as boring once Ken started telling her “real stories.” When fairytales failed to grab her, Ken reached back to his knowledge of history, and suddenly Kira was happier, wanting repeats of wars, famines, and political strife.

After her first week in kindergarten, they got a call from school. 

_“Mr. Yukimura,”_ principals always addressed Ken first even though Noshiko was the partner in her firm, dressed in sharp clothes with sharper eyes. _“Mrs. Yukimura,”_ they always added on in a hastily taken breath. 

At first it was small, just a misunderstanding of storytime. Kira objected to picture books and offered to tell a story about surviving the Dust Bowl and the Red Scare. Ken had to explain that he had stopped reading Kira bedtime stories because she found them boring. 

The first call had ended with a _she’s so intelligent,_ and _she’s a joy to have in class._

Little details began piling up during parent-teacher conferences. Third-grade spelling tests where Kira would choose her own words varied highly from her classmates. While other kids would just opt to take a teacher’s suggestion, Kira always came up with her own words. 

_Plague. _

_Hydrochloric acid. _

_Wither._

_Quarantine._

On top of that, she had stolen books from the library that were out of her age-range section. History books. Horror fiction. The fight that night… Ken still got chills when he thought about Noshiko’s voice filling the living room like waves against weathered rock. 

_“Abnormal interests and behaviors, Kira, do you have any idea what that means?”_ Ken hated how small Kira looked, how her hair fell in front of her face, not quite fast enough to hide the tears rolling down her nose. _“Kira, there are acceptable levels of different that you can be, but this is too much for people.” _

He’d never forget how Kira’s little hands balled into fists. She tilted her head up, her hair falling to reveal red-rimmed eyes and bitten-raw lips.

Ken thought about that stare whenever Kira laughed when her mother would ask if this boyfriend (_please let it be this boyfriend_) was The One. He thought about it when Kira dated boys like it was an assignment, counting down the months until she could cut ties. Noshiko stopped asking after Scott. She’d been hoping Scott would be The One. Whenever she said it, it sounded less romantic and more of a cold solution. 

_A solution to what kind of problem,_ Ken could never ask.

Noshiko tapped her fingers on the tablecloth. Ken didn’t check his watch because he knew the moment he did would be when Kira made it to the restaurant. 

They didn’t always come to Los Angeles, but when they did, Kira always had a new place for them to meet, somewhere with a decent crowd but not too loud, with good food, but not _great._ Ken had a feeling she kept all her favorite places to herself. His wrist itched. He gave into temptation, _7:10,_ and he caught a glimpse of his daughter. 

She looked… good. Happy, and not in the practiced way he had gotten used to over the years. She wore a jacket that was too big for her, a red sweater that had white stripes up the arms. She accidentally bumped into another table, apologizing with a luminous grin. 

Behind her, a man lumbered, and at first Ken thought _what is that stranger doing so close to her, hasn’t he heard of personal space?_

Then it hit him. It wasn’t a stranger, the older man was the _boyfriend_ she’d told them about in passing. _“He’s older,”_ Kira had said on the phone, _“just letting you know.”_

“Hey mom,” Kira hugged Noshiko, “dad,” then him, big, tight, and brief. “This is Bobby.” She glanced back up at the tall stranger— _Bobby_— as she nudged his shoulder. “Bobby, mom and dad or, uh, Noshiko and Ken.” 

Noshiko was better at shouldering surprise than Ken. She shook Bobby’s hand first, brief and firm, and gave Ken the extra seconds he needed to regain his composure. Bobby’s hand was lightly calloused, big, and he didn’t try to squeeze the bones out of his hand like some men who thought every handshake was a challenge to their masculinity. Bobby’s gruff but half-smiled _Nice to meet you_ as pink spotted his cheeks made Ken feel dizzy. _Older_ had made Ken nervous, because Kira would only include details she felt she had to as a warning, a silent _I’m telling you now so you don’t have any outward reactions._

She never had to do that for other boyfriends. 

He pulled out her chair and laughed when she kicked his shoes with a roll of her eyes. He talked about himself when they asked, and Ken noticed that he got more comfortable when he started using his hands to describe his lacrosse matches. His voice was rough, and he constantly paused to cut off a curse before it could finish falling out of his mouth, but Kira… 

Her _smile_ at him was a new expression. 

Previous boyfriends had been weights on her arms, an object to be placed in the corner and barely noticed. It felt like a cat dragging a half-dead mouse to the doorstep, a bitter _there, I’m doing what I’m supposed to,_ as the mouse squeaked even though there was no hope. Those boyfriends, even their best hope Scott, would freeze when Kira began to talk about the documentaries she’d seen, the crimes she covered in the paper. She’d talk faster, with excitement, and every boy froze, smiles not moving, a desperate _please don’t notice how I can’t keep up._

She always noticed, and like the half-dead mice, they always fell to the side when she was bored. 

“Have you seen any new documentaries, Kira?” 

Ken asked after the pleasantries were over and the food was on the table. He felt Noshiko gently touch his knee under the table. Ken kept his smile warm but he’d been to enough dinners with enough men he’d be forced to forget in a few months. He wanted to see Bobby freeze, he wanted to know if it would be okay to not remember his face and name. 

“Oh, yeah.” Kira leaned back in her chair, her shoulder bumping Bobby’s. “The latest was one about a cannibal cop. Well,” Kira rolled her eyes, “he _technically_ wasn’t a cannibal. The documentary was more about thought crime, but it was interesting to think about. That’s like, one of the few things that I can’t wrap my head around, you know?” 

Noshiko hummed and gave Ken the chance to take a quick look at Bobby, to catch that dead, frozen smile of _please let dinner be over._

“Cannibalism?” Bobby had his chin resting on his hand, utterly entranced. “What about it?” 

“You know, like… how does that even start? Did they get a papercut and stick their fingers in their mouth and then thought it tasted great?” Bobby snorted, his eyes twinkling as Kira hit his shoulder. “Obviously not but… yeah. Murder I understand,” Kira waved her hand carelessly, like she was talking about boring coworkers, “motivations from passion,” she said with a roll of her eyes, before softening, “to impulse and just, you know, the brain chemistry goes wonky in just the right ways and when empathy isn’t there coupled with a desire for it, I understand that. But cannibalism,” Kira shrugged, “I’ll have to do more research.” 

Ken waited with bated breath for Bobby to slump, to realize just what he was getting into, to quietly surrender that he’d never keep up with Kira. 

“Just give me a heads up, I’ll make a marinade.” Bobby’s lips pulled back into a full grin, his teeth large. Wolfish. “I can’t imagine it would taste good though. Humans don’t just lay around so it definitely wouldn’t have the same consistency of something like veal.” He squeezed his own arm, where he had a surprising about of muscle, “I’d be pretty gamey if I had to guess.” 

Kira twisted in her chair, and Ken thought Bobby must have grabbed her under the table because she made a noise like she’d been tickled. Ken checked, Bobby’s hands were on the table. 

“It’s—” she blushed. “Oh my _God,_” she hit his arm but it did nothing to lessen his grin. “It’s _dangerous._ The health problems that come from eating another person, it’s so bad— Bobby.” 

“I know.” He leaned in close to her, just enough to bump her shoulder. “You told me.” 

Ken didn’t know what was worse, realizing that Bobby was not going to end up like the other boyfriends, or figuring out that Kira’s _new_ expressions were how she looked when she was truly happy. Ken hadn’t recognized it, because he’d never seen it. 

“She loves him,” Noshiko stated, her voice wavering at the end. 

They walked to their car, readying themselves for a drive to a hotel so they could spend the night, before more driving in the morning up north. They walked slowly down an uneven sidewalk, in silence the way only thirty years of marriage could bring. _She loves him._ Kira didn’t have to say it for them to know. It was her body language, how her smile never soured into placating, and he loved _her,_ despite…

Despite her _unique_ interests, as her teachers would say. 

“He makes her happy,” Ken whispered. “That’s more than she’s had in the past.” 

Noshiko’s hand was warm in his. She squeezed and Ken remembered feeling happy in that moment. Bobby was _older,_ sure, but he really loved Kira. He didn’t freeze up and he wasn’t like the other half-dead mice before. He made Kira happy in a way Ken couldn’t remember seeing.

He’d be repeating that sentiment to the FBI years later. 

::::

Paperwork was the backbone of the FBI. 

_One misfile and it all comes crumbling down,_ Chris would often say with a waning smile. Protocols and procedures were followed and justice _sometimes_ followed. If it didn’t, it would go into The Deep Freeze. That’s what Chris called the file room where cold cases went to die. 

Most murders were moments of violence, a catalyst, that was immediately extinguished once reality came crashing down on the murderer’s shoulders. Passion, illness, anger, all it really meant was that the evidence was in abundance and the perpetrators were easily caught and convicted. Moments of anger and passion left behind a scar, and Stiles was constantly seeing shattered people. The everyday person was not meant to murder, and it showed. 

Even psychopathy was a messy gift, because more often than not, that came to a person through early life trauma. Just because the same marks weren’t left behind, it was rarely easily for them to cover up. 

Smart killers were rare. There was a weird _romance_ built up around _smart murder._ TV shows promised that thousands of intelligent killers were on the move, waiting to pounce gracefully without ever getting caught. 

That was a whole lot of bullshit, but bullshit got ratings. 

“I can feel the eyestrain just stepping into this office, Stilinski.” 

“Shut up, everyone has a system.” 

Multi-colored post-its stuck to his white boards tracking his cold cases and breaking them down into simple, colorful blocks. 

Hot pink for passion, green for gang initiation, blue for cold precision, orange for active suspects, and yellow for suspected intelligence. 

On the post-its he had written notes in sharpie expanding on those very basic identifiers. Chris and Stiles worked live cases, but he kept his cold case pet project organized. Stiles wasn’t stupid, he _knew_ it was a test, but Finstock was right. _Fuck them,_ Stiles wasn’t going to roll over on this. 

Chris was patient. It was clear he was a dad, from how he held himself when Stiles got frustrated with the bureaucracy of his job. He constantly plied Stiles with food. 

“So,” Chris gently moved files off a stool so he could sit down with a puff of breath, “you’ve been sneaking glances through the door. You’ve got something to tell me.” 

Stiles flushed, prickling heat pinching his ears. He twisted in his chair, his leg bouncing. 

“It’s stupid. Nothing solid yet.” 

“Even if it’s stupid, I can tell it’s bothering you.” Chris nudged Stiles’s sneaker. “Spit it out.” 

He was tempted to be a smartass or deflect, but Stiles had been playing that game for the past few months. He rolled his shoulders and reached for _Dark Objects_ where blue and yellow post-its littered the pages. 

“Alright, I warned you.” Stiles felt a flutter in his chest, a growing hum that had been eating away at his appetite for the last month. He reached over to his _you’re not being stupid, Stiles, this is way too weird to **not** notice_ pile. A small stack of blue and yellow post-its tacked onto four cold cases. “I’ve noticed a trend in an author’s writing.” 

Kira had two books out so far, her next promised a summer release. 

Chris took the books and flipped through the marked pages, all murder or immediate-post murder description scenes. Stiles held out the first stack of notes when Chris reached the first fictional death. 

“I made sure to pull the police reports and the local coverage of the deceased, just to be sure.” Stiles leaned over Chris’s shoulder, his finger tracing along his highlighted excerpts. “Unless she somehow got her hands on the police reports, she knows details about these murders that were never released to the public.” 

The first victim was reported to have been stabbed and died of blood loss, that was what made it to the papers. 

_Aim for the kidneys and make sure to knick the arteries for a slow but inevitable bleed out._ She got the placement and number or punctors right. While there wasn’t a murder weapon on the scene, she chose a hunting knife, and it made sense. The wounds had been small, damaging, and clean. By the kidneys, and the nearby arteries were clipped, promising a massive bleed out that still would take up to twenty minutes. 

“Jesus.” Chris flipped to the next section, and Stiles handed him the corresponding file. “Every time?” 

Chris stared at the marked pages. Stiles sighed. 

“Every time.” 

:::::

_ Mr. Hale, _

_I was hoping I could pick your brain about the lilies of the valley and variations in their strains and usage in terms of poison. I’m sure you get requests like this all the time, but I wanted to ask the best expert before resorting to secondary sources. _

_Hope to hear from you,_

_Kira Yukimura _

From the start, Peter was aware that Kira was very smart in who she flattered and _how_ she flattered them. He responded to her initial email within the day, and that, as they say, is history. What began as an inquiry into botanicals and poisons ended with Kira being a noted contributor in Peter’s _Book of Poisons,_ and co-author on forensic journals before she’d finished graduate school. 

At first he cynically used her as a window to a world he’d been torn from. Kira was a beautiful young woman, not a burn-victim who made people flinch whenever she had to go grocery shopping. Kira was, as he predicted, bubbly and just a little naive, her emails filled with emojis and exclamation points. After a month, he could tell she started to relax because she’d joke with him. 

When she visited for the first time, he knew she was more than just a colorful window payne. 

“Kira, while I’m glad you are going to be visiting more often, I feel strange about helping you furnish what’s effectively going to be a fuck palace.” 

She was _still_ laughing and wheezing _fuck_ palace between breaths when Finstock pulled into the cottage driveway. Peter didn’t laugh, swear, or tease before Kira, and he still felt like he was drunk when he allowed himself to crack a smile, giving into the giggles. Finstock found the two of them collapsed in the hall with a half constructed bookshelf. 

“Kira,” Finstock hooked his jacket over a chair with a growing smile, “did you drug Peter?” 

She shook her head, her hands over her mouth as if that would ease her laughter. Bobby couched down between the two of them, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and mouth deepening as Peter hiccuped. Kira’s fingers dug into Finstock’s shirt. 

“He called this,” she squeezed her eyes shut, “our fuck palace.” 

The three of them laughed like maniacs on the floor. Peter ended up with Kira’s head on his stomach and Finstock’s elbow digging into Peter’s back. 

Of all the surprises Kira brought to his doorstep, Finstock had to be the biggest and the weirdest. He was everything Peter was not, loud, obscene, and expressive. Peter wanted to hate him, he was _ready_ to loathe the man that occupied Kira’s nights because it had been delightful drinking wine, talking about murder methods and botany, and waking up on the couch and continuing as they made breakfast together. Then Bobby became a facet in Kira’s life and Peter had to make weeknights count. 

Bobby was terribly likeable. He wrestled Peter’s loathing out of his fingers and smothered it until… until Peter was filled with the same satisfaction he got staying up late with Kira when it was the three of them being silly on her cottage floor. Peter waited for their honeymoon period to end, for Kira’s smile becoming pinched at Bobby’s name, but it hadn’t happened. 

_This one is different,_ Peter realized with bittersweet finality. 

Back when it was just Peter and Kira, growing close over the years and looking over each other’s work before Kira would have to return to the real world… she said she didn’t believe in romantic love. 

_“Not for myself,”_ Kira quickly amended, the ice cubes in her fruit wine clinking against the glass, _“I see it in other people, you know. Couples. I see it, and I know that it’s love but…”_ She shrugged. The thin smile that cracked across her face was not kind. _“It’s easy to get someone to love me, but a part of me… hates that. I’d rather they jerk off to a photograph.”_ She rested her cheek on her hand, flushed from the alcohol but her eyes hard as diamonds. _“I love my friends and family,”_ she squeezed Peter’s knee, _“that’s enough.”_

He understood, all too well, about the disappointments in men. 

Peter picked himself up off the floor and took out three summer shandies he knew were in Kira’s refrigerator. He savored the cold glass against his palm as Bobby stood with a soft grunt. 

“You’re just gonna stay on the floor all night?” 

“Yeah,” Kira giggled, “in my fuck palace.” 

Bobby pulled her up to the feet, always a little too fast because she’d stumble into him, still giggling, still warm.

Something small unfurled inside of Peter, something he’d kept tucked away and curled up tight for fear of letting it get hurt. Affection, undiluted and untainted affection warmed his chest. The reason it didn’t sour his stomach was that Bobby returned it tenfold, in different ways, not just a clumsy mirroring technique so many boys tried when they thought they were being clever. 

Kira was a writer, which meant she coveted information, hoarding it like his grandmother hoarded costume jewelry. Peter was suddenly struck by the memory of turning over broaches and glittering pins, thinking they were worth mountains of money because of how they shimmered in the light. His mother called them _garrish_ and _cheap._ Peter always wondered how something so ostentatious could ever be cheap.

Bobby reminded him of his grandmother’s jewelry. 

He glittered, had a weighted presence, and there was something about him that made people look twice. 

Peter sipped his beer. Kira sat on a stool and Bobby kissed her fingertips, his eyes shining in the dim light. Kira’s cheeks were red, and she let him get a few more kisses in before she shoved her fingers into his mouth. Bobby gagged, but Peter saw his lips stretch at the corners. He garbled out exaggerated gnawing noises. 

_You love him._

Kira wiped Bobby’s saliva down the front of his shirt. Bobby’s, “oh wow, thanks, I knew something was missing when I bought this shirt,” was cut off by his own snort. He licked his palm and smeared it against Kira’s cheek. She shrieked with laughter. The small thing in his chest fluttered. It was as painful as it was… good. 

_I can see it,_ Peter thought through the pain of his throat tightening, _I can see it in everything you do._

::::

Scott McCall was the personification of petting a golden retriever. 

It was a six and a half hour flight and a longer drive in pouring rain that left Stiles feeling and looking like shit. He smelled like airport and whenever he swallowed his spit tasted stale. His umbrella broke and he was dripping all over the tiles while the smell of rubbing alcohol filled his nose— and _still,_ Scott McCall’s _“you must be Agent Stilinski, that must have been a helluva drive, huh,”_ chased the cold from Stiles’s skin. 

“Wow,” Scott whistled low into the night air, holding his umbrella out for a pitbull mix that was too skittish of the rain to do it’s business. “Kira Yukimura. Haven’t thought about her in,” he laughed, ducking his head down, “a while.” 

“Yeah, I know it can be difficult to recall certain… events, especially in a relationship,” Stiles smiled when the dog sniffed his fingers, licking his palm when Stiles flexed his fingers. “I just want to clear up specific dates.” 

Scott made tea as he closed up the vet, saying goodbye to all the pets that were staying overnight. He didn’t use a baby-voice, he just spoke calmly, happily, earning tail wags and purrs. 

Damp polyester clung to Stiles’s back as Scott turned index cards over in his hands. 

_July 13th-17th, 2009_

_June 20th-26th, 2010_

_August 30th-September 3rd, 2011_

_August 25th-28th, 2012_

“Man, I’m going to have to go through Facebook for this.” Scott scrolled through his phone. “Stuff just kind of blurs together, you know?” The first two dates Scott was on vacation with his family, Kira had not been with him at the time. Stiles watched Scott put his phone down after scrolling. “August 30th, that was a wedding. My cousin’s, Kira came with me but,” Scott’s mouth pulled down, “she ended up leaving early.” 

Stiles sat up in his chair. 

“Do you remember why?” 

“She doesn’t like crowds. And… people. She’s a writer,” Scott shrugged, “you know, it’s an internal thing, I think. It was going to be a whole weekend, but she left that night.” 

“Where was the wedding?”

“San Francisco.” Stiles was careful to keep his face still despite the uptick in his heart. That date corresponded to Neal Beletsky, father of two, who was stabbed to death on the I-15 in California. He was from Utah, had left his home on a business trip, and never returned. Scott’s lips dipped down at the last date. “Uh, we broke up with me right before August 25th, 2012. I remember because I had to return concert tickets for the 27th.” Scott put the cards down on the table. “You said this was about cold cases?” 

Piping hot lemon tea helped ease the discomfort at Stiles’s soaked through clothes sticking to his body. 

“I’m going over dates and following leads.” 

Scott’s shoulders fell and the skin around his eyes tightened. 

“Aren’t there statistics that violent killers are most likely men? I feel like I read that somewhere.”

Stiles fought the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Between you and me, I like to think that anyone is capable of anything.” 

Scott sat back in his chair, hard enough that the legs creaked. 

“Fuck.” Stiles watched Scott’s face cascade through the emotional roller coaster of _what if I dated a murderer,_ before it shuttered, his lips going tight, his eyes breaking Stiles’s briefly before he returned his gaze. “So she writes dark stuff, that’s just the nature of what she does. I’m not creative, she doesn’t— she doesn’t date other writers, maybe she should but— look, I don’t pretend to get everything she’s into, everything she researched and saved, but… it’s _Kira._ She can be sweet when she wants to, really sweet.” Scott shook his head, his shoulders slumping inward. “I don’t— she _can’t—”_

Stiles saw Scott’s breath catch, his entire body freezing, his eyes wide with panic. Stiles gently closed his hand over Scott’s. 

“Breathe in with me for five seconds, through your nose.” He mouthed _one, two, three, four, five_ before he continued, “now out through your mouth, one, two, three, four, five. Now, tell me three different things you see, three different things you feel, and three different things you hear. Then we’ll do it again, but by twos, then one.” 

They did, Scott’s panic fading into bewilderment. By the last exercise, a few stray tears rolled down his cheeks but his body was relaxed. 

“What was that?” 

“It’s a trick I learned from my therapist.” Stiles let go of Scott’s hand, leaning back in his chair to give him space. “I get panic attacks, not as much as I used to, but… this helped. It takes out out of that panic state, but doesn’t exactly chase away all of the feelings. For me, it allows me be more articulate, while still feeling what I was feeling.” 

Stiles’s tea had gone cold. Scott grabbed some tissues and blew his nose. 

“Thanks. It’s been a bit since I’ve had to think about her.” 

If Stiles knew Scott, if he were friends with him, had beers with him, he would have let it slip. Stiles would have blanketed Scott in benign stories until the last traces of panic were erased. He would have ordered a pizza, kicked it back in his favorite pajamas, and played video games until they couldn’t keep their eyes open. 

“Why does thinking about Kira Yukimura make you panic?” 

Stiles swallowed around the uncomfortable knot in his throat. He wasn’t Scott’s friend, no matter how likeable he was, no matter how cute the dogs he took care of were. Scott sighed, deep and weary. 

“She just…” Scott shrugged. “At the end it just felt… like she was playing with me, and I wasn’t good to play with anymore. It hurt, you know. But, I knew deep down I’d never be what she needed. She was always so… _bored_ by normal things. Stuff that I like, things that I don’t find boring, she’d be going out of her mind because she felt she could be spending her time better.” 

There were certain tells in a person’s face, swallowing a lot, lingering eye contact, a silent _plea_ for validation. _Please make me say more, please._

“Dr. McCall, why your relationship with Kira end?” 

Rain pelted the windows. Somewhere, closer than before, thunder rumbled. 

“She wanted help blocking out a scene, and I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t do it.” Scott’s lips twisted, his shoulders popping when he rolled them. “She needed help with a murder scene and she wanted… me to try and pin her, to see how far I could reach with one hand, how hard I’d have to push her down to keep her down and it made me uncomfortable, I didn’t want to hurt her but she kept pushing. Like… things like wanting to see where, if I’d been armed with a knife or ice pick, the angle where it would pierce her. She loved donating blood because of how it felt… but she wanted to figure out things like, bleed out times and how long the struggle would last. I just… I can’t think like that. I can’t. So, I ended it and she said, _‘that’s fine,’_ and… yeah. That’s it.” 

_That’s rough, buddy_ pressed against Stiles’s teeth, but it was smothered with the exhilerated _holy shit, holy fucking **shit** I need to call Chris._

“Thank you for your time, Dr. McCall.” Stiles stood, new life breathed into him. A part of him knew it wasn’t _right_ to be excited about a detail like a man having to do murder roleplay with an ex, but… but it was _something._ It was circumstantial but it was the _start._ Stiles had to fight down every reflex to grin and pump his fist. “Please call me if you think you have any other useful information for us.” 

Stiles slid his card to a bewildered Scott. He barely stayed for the _of course, Agent Stilinski,_ before he was running back out into the rain. _Thank God for Bluetooth,_ Stiles thought as Chris’s voice crackled over the _whirr-whirr_ of the windshield wipers. 

_“So, did the ex-boyfriend clear any alibis?”_

“No,” Stiles bounced in the driver’s seat, grinning from ear to ear. “Chris, dude, she was not accounted for during any of the dates and—” Stiles slammed the heel of his hand on the steering wheel, “she made him do murder role-play with her! Oh my _God,_ Chris.” Stiles laughed. “I’m going to head to their alma mater next, see what I can dig up there.”

Chris whistled with a long exhale. 

_“Good work, Stilniski. Drive safe, and call me before you start work at the university.”_

Stiles disconnected the call and came to a stop at a red light. Lightning flashed and a sheepish _blip_ came from his phone. A news article, and Stiles unlocked his screen to see what headline his phone’s algorithm assumed he’d be interested in reading. 

_Author Kira Yukimura announces engagement to long-term boyfriend._

“Shit.” Stiles tightened his grip on the wheel, his teeth grinding around a loud thunder clap. He put his phone down, focusing on the red glow peeking through the rain. It had taken just a few questions and index cards to make Scott McCall panic, after years of separation and forming a life, Kira still had that _grip_ on him. Stiles didn’t want that, _or worse,_ to happen to Coach. _“Fuck.”_

::::

The first _I love you_ was eight months in, the first Christmas break that she wasn’t going to spend with her parents. 

Kira’s original plan had been to surprise Bobby in the high school parking lot. She’d been picturing it for weeks, the look on his face when he turned the corner and she was leaning up against his car, reading a true crime book, forensic guide, or psychology reports like this was their routine. She dreamed of his crooked grin, how he’d tuck her hair behind her ear before he leaned in for a kiss, the feel of his stubble prickling against her skin. _Maybe one day it could be our routine,_ Kira’s heart raced dangerously at the thought. 

Right as she was going to turn on to the street that would take her to the school, her agent called. Kira quickly did a U-Turn, and was in her cottage driveway within minutes. 

_“Kira, are you alright? You sound out of breath.”_

“I’m fine. I had to take a detour but I’m here. I’m not driving, I’ve got my earbuds in, talk to me Lydia.” 

Kira lugged out her bags but let them fall to the side once Lydia got talking, blowing past the usual pleasantries and gossip and cutting right to the point. Kira ended up sitting on the porch, wood digging into the back of her thighs as her legs dangled over the edge. Peter sent her a text, _I thought you were going to surprise Bobby._ Kira quickly messaged back, _Agent called._

Lydia’s voice sighing around words like _HBO contracts_ and _spec script minimum_ made Kira dizzy.

_“They’re trying to fuck us out of a bigger cut but they’ll back down. They’re thinking of Amy Adams as a lead, I think that could be good, what do you think?”_

Kira leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. 

“She’s great, but does anyone care what I think?”

Lydia laughed. 

_“Look, I wanted to let you know the good news. Nothing is solid yet, but I should have a clearer answer for you before Christmas. Once we get them to commit, we can start talking about getting you a lawyer to go over these contracts.”_ Somewhere in Lydia’s office a phone rang, something pinged, and Lydia sighed. _“Ugh, duty calls. But have a lovely getaway Kira. When you’re back in town we’ll get champagne no matter how this turns out, okay?”_

“Yeah.” Kira sucked in air. “L’chaim.” 

Lydia’s laughter still rang in Kira’s ears when a familiar rumbling engine crackled over the stone driveway. She kept her eyes down, her breathing even. 

Good things, _really fucking good things,_ were not anything Kira waited for or expected. She woke up some nights, her throat sore and her eyes wet, a looming anxiety of _this will all get taken away,_ a hissed _weird girls don’t get good things_ wriggling into the deepest parts of her ear. 

Calloused hands smoothed over her cheeks. Lips pressed against her forehead. 

“Hey, sweetheart.” Bobby’s breath tickled the top of her head. She closed her eyes, leaning against his chest. She never realized how _much_ she missed him until she was leaning up, eyes still closed, for a kiss. Kissing Bobby was easy, so easy it was frightening, knowing and _loving_ how his smile tasted. He ran his fingers down her jaw, her neck, his thumb tracing her collar bone. “Peter said you either got a really good call or a really bad call.” 

“Mm.” Kira opened her eyes, taking in his face. “I was going to surprise you at school.” 

“Stalker.” Bobby grinned the word out against the back of her grin, pressing his teeth into her skin, gentle bites making her squirm. “Need to get out of your head for a bit?” 

“Yes.” He bit down harder. The soft flesh above her elbow tingled. _“Please.”_

Bobby pulled her off the porch. 

“You get a fifteen second head start.” 

She took off running, her cheap sneakers skidding on the gravel before she made it to the soft grass. Her limbs tingled, still numbed from Lydia’s phone call, but the more she ran, the more the chilled air cut her face, the more she felt. By the time strong arms wrapped around her middle and dragged her to the dirt, Kira was shrieking with laughter, her legs kicking. He threw her to the ground, not too hard, but hard _enough._

Kira wound her fingers in his shirt and pulled, the seams straining as Bobby crashed to the ground. 

Peter called it a mating ritual. Kira called it play-fighting. Shoving, pushing, throwing her weight to try and knock Bobby off balance. He’d catch her wrists, pin her legs, and he wouldn’t give her an inch, not until she was back in her head, back to a place where she could keep him in focus without blinking. 

By the time her lungs felt like they were back in her body, she was pinned to the ground, Bobby squeezing her arms while his legs caged her hips. 

“Thank you.” His grip vanished and he helped her up, brushing off some clumps of dirt and grass, though there were no hope for the grass stains. He kissed her cheek, and Kira pulled him into a real one, the kind that stole his breath, made his fingers dig into her hips. “I missed you.” 

She bit into his lower lip. She liked how it made his smile doopy and sweet. 

“Missed you too.” His eyes held hers, and he really _looked_ at her. “Anything else I can do?” 

Kira used to hate that question. Her other boyfriends never meant it. They never wanted anything honest from Kira. Her heart thudded against her chest. Bobby wasn’t _like_ the others. When he asked, he really _meant_ it, and Kira was terrified to explore what that meant, to know how _far_ she could go. 

_Maybe he really wants all of me._

“Sure. Yeah, if you don’t mind.” Kira rode out the giddy feeling, shaking out her arms and staring across the expanse of yard. “I’ve been stuck on a few murder scenes. Could you help with my choreography?” 

“Absolutely,” Finstock replied with no hesitation, not batting an eye like that one word didn’t shoot down Kira’s spine like hot tea after a long winter. “What are you working on?” 

Kira didn’t think about Lydia, didn’t think about any incoming emails, contracts, or possible new legal team. She didn’t think about her job, and whether or not she’d be able to keep it, or if she even _wanted_ to keep it. 

“For the next book I want a female killer, but violent, no poisoning or anything passive like that.” Kira swayed on her feet, careful not to touch him. “But if they were my size and, let’s say, they’re going after someone like you. Big and broad. How the fuck am I going to get you laid out on the ground long enough to do anything damaging, you know? Without it being some sort of drug agent first?” 

Other boyfriends stalled for time. _I don’t know. I don’t think about this kind of stuff. Why do **you** think about this stuff?_ Thought experiments weren’t a crime, and Kira was tired of people pretending to be above simple questions. Half of her hoped Bobby would disappoint her, because she was afraid of what she’d do if he didn’t. 

“Hm.” Bobby walked forward. She watched his breath fog out in front of him, his shoulders stretching his shirt as rubbed his face. Kira listened to the _skritch-skritch_ of his palms against his stubble. “What if she knocked the wind out of them?” He turned, his lips curled in a hopeful smile. “That shit hurts, you can’t breathe, that would be plenty of time to land a good hit.” He winked. “Maybe some puncture wounds if you’re looking to just end it right on the spot.” 

Kira’s breath shuddered in the night air. 

“How would,” she swallowed, “how could a person knock the wind out of the other?” 

“Easy. Here you can do it to me.” He took her hand and pressed it to her diaphragm. “I’ll take a deep breath and you need to wait for me to exhale. Once the last of the air is out, give me a half tackle-hug, hit me here,” he tapped his diaphragm, “with your shoulder. Firm, like when we wrestle.” 

The sky bled scarlet and tangerine as the sun sank below the trees. 

“Won’t it hurt?” 

“Sure, a little.” Bobby shrugged. “I don’t mind.” He kissed her cheek before he took four steps back. “Ready?” 

Kira nodded and watched him take a deep breath. He held it, then released, slowly. Kira watched until the clouds stopped coming from his mouth, then she kicked off, hit him exactly where he told her to. They both fell to the ground, Kira’s body buzzing as Bobby’s arms flopped to the side. He wheezed, his chest jumping, seizing, his fingers twitching. 

She knelt beside him, drinking it in, how his even the slightest inhale sounded like a struggle, like he was falling backwards. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes glassy. She held his hand. He _squeezed_ and finally drew in a full lungful of air. He coughed, his eyes squeezing shut as he sat up, his shoulders curled inward. 

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and Kira felt like she’d been the one robbed of breath when he flashed a lazy smile. 

“I love you.” 

The words escaped into the night air, tearing from her lips in a puff of smoke. They didn’t sour on her tongue, they didn’t sound flimsy and weak. She felt stronger, and free in a way she never dreamed possible. Bobby didn’t give her a chance to wonder, to pull away, or wade into the possibility that he would be distressed by the affection. 

“I love you too.” 

He whispered, his lips in a crooked slant, his breath tingling across his lips. The wind chilled her back as she straddled his hips, her palm pressing over his heart. Despite his calm, easy-going smile, his heartbeat raced. He let out a breathy laugh, a slight wheeze cutting him off, his lungs still recovering. 

Her phone chimed, a few feet away in a soft patch of grass. 

“Really?” Kira smiled in the dark, holding Bobby’s gaze. “You promise?” 

He skimmed his finger across his chest. 

“Cross my heart.”

Kira tucked into his chest, closing her eyes as his palm drifted down her spine. 

“Hope to die.”

::::

Senior Editor Ito reminded Stiles of the hard-nosed detectives from old noir films. Her eyes were dark, razor-sharp, and her face didn’t betray anything when Stiles held out his badge and introduced himself as, “Agent Stilinski.” He was led briskly, but not too fast to attract suspicion, to her corner office. 

“I can give you fifteen minutes, _maybe_ twenty but as soon as my assistant knocks, I’ll need to head our weekly catch-up meeting.” 

“Then I’ll be brief.” Stiles sat when she gestured to a chair in front of her desk. “I’d like to ask you about Kira Yukimura’s career with the Los Angeles Times.” 

Satomi’s stony face cracked, for a brief moment, when her eyes widened. Stiles had spotted one of Kira’s books on Satomi’s shelf. 

“It was fruitful. She was a wonderful, hard-working reporter. We’re happy and excited for her change in careers.” 

Stiles slid forward index cards. 

_August 17th-20th, 2014_

_August 14th-19th, 2015_

_August 21st-28th, 2016_

“Can you account for her on these dates?” 

Itio’s eyebrows raised and she only had to look at the cards briefly. 

“I can not. Kira would take three and a half weeks off at the end of summer every year she worked here.” 

“Three and a half weeks,” Stiles whistled, “that’s long. Most folks are lucky to get two.” 

Satomi sat back in her chair.

“We accommodate our employees and Kira was particularly exceptional. She worked right up to the wire, even during the holidays.” Stiles took the card back. Satomi held onto it, making Stiles look up. “You said you’re working on cold cases. Kira’s work history with us has… exactly _what_ to do with whatever your investigation?” 

Stiles pulled the card free from her grip. 

“I’m trying to see if she has a trustworthy alibi.”

“Any luck?”

“Nope. Not yet.” Her mask shifted, a worry line between her eyebrows, tightness in her eyes as her mouth dipped down for a split-second. Within one breath the mask was back in place. Stiles leaned back in his chair, smoothing down his shirt. “What was Kira’s department? What made her so exceptional?” 

Outside of Satomi’s office, phones rang and journalists were shouting across the floor to each other, sometimes running with notes and coffee. It was an impressive operation, fast-paced and loud. It was hard to imagine Kira, who seemed sweeter than sugar, staying afloat in such a space. 

Satomi’s eyes glanced to the clock for the first time since Stiles sat down. 

“Crime.” Satomi stood and Stiles quickly followed her example. “Kira didn’t make excuses, she got the job done. Satomi opened her office door. “It didn’t matter how grisly the scene was, Kira was always on call. Agent Stilinski, you seem like a capable young man, I’m sure you can find your way to the elevators.” 

“Thank you for your—” The door slammed in his face, “time.” 

Stiles had exhausted Kira’s social media, as sporadic as her updates had become as soon as her first book adaptation was announced. Her Instagram updates slowed to a crawl, and her Facebook was private. Those dates the posts were non-existent, or sporadic, with shots of flowers, rivers, coffee, nothing solid enough to confirm or deny she was within distance of the murders. 

_“She’s an odd duck,”_ her old professor said, his leather chair squeaking under his weight when Stiles first interviewed him. _“Hated my advice for her to stick to romance. Everyone knows when a woman writes a romance novel it sells better, but she insisted on violence.”_ The old man rolled his eyes. _“Her gamble paid off, I suppose. Still, women should stick to romance.”_

Aside from the gross misogyny, Stiles learned that Kira had stood her ground, walking the thin line of shock-value and subversive when it came to the violence she wrote. 

Violence was her bread and butter. 

:::: 

The magic time to go to the grocery store was 11:15 in the morning. 

Kira had it down to a science. Right when the store opened was tempting, but a mistake because every grandmother who woke up early would be scouring the aisles for different deals, making a face when Kira never double-checked prices. Anytime after three was a bust because school was out and the store was always flooded with last minute pick-ups for dinner. 11:15 was after the grandmothers went home and before anyone could start thinking about things they were going to need for dinner. 

She unloaded bags of flour and sugar into the car, quickly checking to make sure she had everything she needed. She traced her eyes over ingredients, spices, and once she was satisfied, she closed the trunk.

A man in a suit was a few feet away, leaning against her car. Kira jumped. 

“Jesus,” Kira held her hand over her heart. “You scared me.” Something tickled in the back of her head. She narrowed her eyes, a small smile growing on her face. “Stiles, right? I think I remembered that correctly,” she held out her hand, “how are you?” 

It’s strange, how cold she felt at the first _click_ of handcuffs around her wrists. He read her rights, and Kira’s first thought was _the milk is going to go bad_ when she was shoved into the back of Stiles’s unmarked car. She hadn’t even noticed the other agent, and older man with salt-and-pepper hair who rode in the passenger’s seat.

Her first instinct was to cry, to start talking, but experience had her teeth clenching to keep it in. _Wait for an attorney,_ Kira sucked in air, seat belt digging into her chest as Stiles pulled into the Beacon Hills police station, _don’t say anything without an attorney._

Her cheeks burned as she walked to a back room in the station, past the Sheriff’s office and past the stares from officers, people she’d viewed as friends. She kept her breathing even, her head held high but not _too_ high, right until the moment Stiles closed the door behind her. He undid her cuffs and Kira had her cell phone in her hand. 

“I’m calling my attorney if that’s alright with you, Stiles.” She glanced to the other man. He nodded. “And… my fiance?” She felt a slimy satisfaction at Stiles’s flinch. “Can I let him know that I won’t be home?” 

Her attorney Harold, one of Lydia’s friends, was an older, jolly man with big laugh lines. He always picked up with a, _“Kira, how are you?”_ that made her smile, even when she had two FBI Agents watching her every move. She explained the situation and heard the smile drop off Harold’s face. _“Let me make a few calls, all right? We’ll have someone at the station within the hour.”_ Next came Bobby, a quick text. 

_At the police station, have been detained. My car is at the grocery store. I love you._

Panic was always an awful sensation, but Kira reached a point where it grew to be too great, and then vanished. She called it a circuit breaker, a trigger that shut her down before she overheated. Kira felt the hysteria grow, her mind a spiral of _what happened, what do they think I did, will they believe me, who would believe me—_ before the switch kicked in and Kira was released into numbed awareness. 

Who knew panic could be so zen?

Kira waited, hands folded in her lap until the attorney arrived. 

“Kira Yukimura, we have reason to believe that you are involved with the following murders on the following dates.” 

The attorney Harold had sent was a woman with a firm handshake and a dead-pan, monotone voice. She introduced herself as _Melfi,_ like she was aware the pleasantries of smiles and first names were not appropriate for Kira’s situation. Stiles listed off names, a few that Kira recognized from the newspaper clippings she collected over the years of interesting murders. For research. His partner (_“Agent Argent,”_ he’d introduced himself with a brief handshake) sat back in his chair, his face heavily shadowed by the fluorescents above them. 

Mefli worked fast, taking down the names, dates, and time of death without batting an eye. 

_Keep breathing,_ Kira reminded herself even when her tongue tasted like ash. She straightened her back, her eyes on the date as Stiles _finally_ stopped talking. Kira had her calendar and photo gallery open on her phone, already scrolling down to the first date. 

“There are plenty of other people with shaky alibis that correspond to these dates,” Kira kept her eyes on her phone, biting her lip as she just kept waiting for her itinerary to load, pictures to manifest. “What singled me out?” 

“Your books.” Kira jerked her head up at that. The anxiety that still warmed her skin vanished, replaced by an icy tundra. Stiles had a _look_ on his face, like he had it all figured out, like he’d bested her at a game. He shifted his weight, and the look changed. She _recognized_ that look, the same pinched glances from her parents when they read her first manuscript, the simpering smile from a dim-witted professor who thought women should stick to romance and poetry. “They were very realistic.” 

Melfi’s pen stopped scratching the paper. Kira’s thumb hovered over her phone. 

“Thank you.” 

Stiles had folders in front of him, which he turned to face her before opening them. Glossy, maccabe photos of bodies filled Kira’s vision. She flinched and Mefli made a _tsk_ sound with her teeth, her cheeks rapidly losing color. 

“Is that _really_ necessary, Agent Stilinski—?”

“Kira, you had details in your books that matched these crime scenes to the letter.” He spread out the pictures, one by one, until seven different dead men were laid out before her. “I spoke to your peers. You were well-liked at the Times. No matter how grisley the crime, when others were too squeamish, it never bothered you.” Kira’s thumb stopped, holding down the first date on Mefli’s list. “At school, you defended violence in storytelling. An ex remarked that you asked to roleplay a murder scenario. He mentioned one of your favorite sensations was when you’d donate blood because you, and I quote, ‘enjoy the feeling of it leaving my body.’” 

_There are acceptable levels of different that you can be, but this is too much for people._

She was born already _exhausted_ of what was acceptable. Kira couldn’t recall a time when she was constantly shifting her interests to the side, compartmentalizing, figuring out how much of herself she could show and when. _That must be exhausting,_ a therapist remarked. Kira’s quick reply was, _it builds character._

Bobby liked Stiles, and from what he’d described, he was a smart kid. Ambitious. _Like me,_ Kira thought when she first met him, but now… the sentiment soured. She held Stiles’s eyes, her anger roaring inside of her. It snarled, snapped its teeth, wanting _out,_ but Kira _always_ kept her hands tight on the reins. Her anger snarled for blood, humiliation, and the utter annihilation of its target. 

Kira learned that she could provide all of those things without getting loud and throwing things. 

“Stiles,” Kira smiled, “I enjoyed my job and I pride myself on doing _good_ work in my profession. For the Times, it was the crime beat. It was a good fit and I held myself to a high standard. Now, I’m lucky enough to say that writing is my profession, and I _always_ want to improve.” She shrugged. “Scott didn’t understand that. It’s not his profession. And he’s an ex, I don’t blame him for wanting to vent about a relationship that ended on bad terms.” Kira picked up the pictures, turning them over in her hands. “I have a book, it’s called _The Encyclopedia of the Human Body._ It breaks down the body layer by layer. To be honest, the way I decided on the murders in my books are a mixture of efficiency and flourish. Efficiency cuts the arteries. Flourish,” Kira smirked, “looks good on television.” 

Kira leaned forward across the table. 

“The first date I was at a retreat with my mother, here is the hotel receipt, room service receipts, and pictures my mom took,” Kira turned her phone around. It was a picture of Kira with cucumber slices on her eyes, lounging in a bath. “Melfi, what was the next date?” 

One by one, Kira went through her phone and covered the dates Stiles provided. She kept her voice steady, her expression demure as his face crumbled. 

“Look, I’m glad you were doing your due diligence. I’m kinda flattered, you know. Most folks think women can’t commit violent crimes.” Melfi snickered and quickly hid it in her fist, faking a cough. Stiles’s cheeks were red. Argent kept checking his watch. “I can go, right?” 

Stiles didn’t say anything, didn’t even get out of his chair. _Wounded ego,_ Kira thought as Argent nodded, _he’ll get over it._

Melfi walked out first with a cheerful, _“I’ll send my invoice to Harold. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Yukimura.”_ Kira took her time, letting warmth return to her limbs and face. She only broke out into a run when she saw that Bobby was waiting, sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair. They collided with a _thud,_ his back hitting the wall when she jumped into a hug. His _“Oh god, are you okay,”_ was quickly overlapped with, _“Is that… Stiles?”_

They drove home in exhausted silence. 

Pizza was delivered, Kira changed into pajamas, and they cuddled on the couch. Her throat hurt from going over the details of the questioning. She always felt wrung out after strong negative emotional responses, and going from terrified to enraged left her feeling hollow. Finally, they were able to just sit, his chin resting on her head as he ran the tips of his fingers down her back, her hip, and up to her neck in a gentle, hypnotic loop. 

“The kids knew something was up, I couldn’t concentrate on shit. I think I just let them run half a loop around the field before we got started.” Bobby huffed and kissed her forehead. “I’m gonna have to work them extra hard tomorrow.” 

Underneath the grousing, Kira knew he was upset. His grip was a little too tight, his frown too deep. She leaned up, rubbing her cheek against his until he laughed. 

“It’s okay. Every date I had a solid alibi, witnesses, receipts, I mean… especially the ones after I met you.” She tapped his chest. “It was a misunderstanding. Happens to the best of us.” He hummed. Kira didn’t let him slip away. “What do you need?” She smoothed out the lines in his forehead with her thumb, following it with her lips. “Anyway I can help?” 

She felt him twitch underneath her, hardening against her thigh. His palm slid from her hip, up, up, _up_ under her shirt. His palm was warm, pressing in the middle of her chest. 

“What about you? How are you feeling?” 

It was dark out, and Kira felt like the rest of the world fell away, that it was just them, floating in their small cottage. She kissed him, loving how he still made a surprised, pleased noise. 

“Still a little fuzzy around the edges. Being with you makes it better.” 

Bobby always got a happy-sad smile, happy because they were in love, sad because… well, Kira wasn’t sure why. He kissed her, short and sweet. He got up. 

“Let me just get the dishes soaked and we’ll work on the last bit of fuzz.” He winked. Kira sat up on her knees, twisting so her stomach was pressed to the back of the couch so she could watch Bobby make his way to the connecting kitchen. “Stiles is a smart kid. I hope you… don’t hold this against him.” 

“I don’t.” Kira waved her hand in a _swept away_ gesture. “I was mad, but it’s his job. He’ll be fine, he might even crack the case.” 

Bobby ran the sink, his back to her. He whistled. 

“I’m sure he will. Whenever he’s knocked down, he comes back swinging twice as hard.”

Kira straightened, one leg thrown over the couch’s arm, the large windows at her back filled with ink-black darkness that could never be found in a city. Fabric stretched across Finstock’s shoulders, an old college shirt. The dishes clinked, a sound Kira heard a thousand times, and hoped to keep hearing for years to come. The ring on her hand glittered. Her throat tightened. 

“You’re not worried?” 

Bobby turned off the faucet. He wiped his hands, the towtel dragging across his hands as he turned. 

“Worried about what?” 

Kira’s lips twitched at the corners as the rest of the world held its collective breath.

“That he’ll figure out it’s you.”

::::

Finstock always had something missing. When he was little, it would be a sock, a note, a button, something _missing_ that would make his mom groan his name and his father curse. The older he got, the more coordinated he was with clothes and belongings, but something was still _missing._ A feeling, maybe a tangible thing he could hold, Finstock wasn’t sure. 

His father kept steering him in different directions. He hopped around to different sports, collected stamps, baseball cards, bottle caps, not out of a need but because his father asked him to. 

He listened to music, he kissed girls, he laughed at jokes, and he got excited for school dances. 

Still, something wasn’t there. 

He went to college and fell in love with finance and history. He had girlfriends, he had boyfriends, he scoured the community flyer boards for clubs, events, _anything_ that could get him closer to the ever-present void in his chest. 

Searching for something with no name was exhausting, and it was during a long drive across the country, from New York back to California, that the void grew larger, a yawning maw that hungered for _something_ and Finstock suddenly began to cry with the unfairness of it. If he was hungry, he ate, if he was horny, he jerked off. Life wasn’t that complicated for everyone else, what the fuck was _missing—_

He’d only voiced this growing anxiety once to his father. 

_“Bobby, you gotta stop being bent out of shape about this kind of thing. You’ll figure it out, just keep trying. Me, it’s fishing. Sometimes, when I just need to clear my head, I go out onto the lake, and fish. I don’t even need to catch anything, that’s not the point. It’s just… the act of fishing, Bobby. That was my missing piece, until I went fishing with my uncle. Then I found it, and I have it.”_

The more Finstock experienced and learned, the more worried he became that… whatever he was waiting for wasn’t normal.

The night he drove back, he was too tired to be anxious. He was too tired to be anything but empty.

Yellow hazard lights made him blink. He passed a car, a beat-up Chevy. The driver was out, arms crossed against a barrel chest and smoke coming out from under the hood. Finstock pulled over. 

“Aw geez,” Finstock had said with a ducked head. “You need help, mister?” 

The man had big glasses and he spit to the side, a wad of muddy chewing tobacco lost somewhere on the asphalt. 

“Somethin’s busted. Can you hold the light,” the man held out a flashlight, “gotta see the damage.” 

He held the flashlight and the old man grunted, leaning under the hood. _I have a knife,_ Finstock suddenly thought, out of nowhere. _I have a knife in my back pocket. _

_“It’s called an intrusive thought,”_ his college girlfriend had said with a roll of her eyes when he asked about her studies. She was a Psych major, and they only lasted three months but some of the papers she wrote were fascinating. _“Like, a unpleasant flash. Say a woman hands you her baby for a few minutes. You might have the thought of killing the baby, just because it’s in your hands, it’s so vulnerable, like… it’s a thing you could do. You don’t **want** to do it, but you could, you know?”_

Finstock’s hand was steady with the flashlight. 

_“What if it’s not an unpleasant thought?”_ Finstock had asked during their study sessions that always ended up with them fucking on top of their half-assed notes. _“Like, what if a man holds that baby, thinks about killing it, but to him it’s not scary?”_

She’d laughed, tilting her head back that always accentuated her neck and cleavage. 

_“Then I guess he’d just a psycho,”_ she’d shrugged, a silent _eh, what are you gonna do?_

Finstock didn’t feel afraid as he took the knife out with his free hand. He got the blade of the pocket knife out with one hand, and still he didn’t feel revulsion. The void in chest shuddered and it… lessened. The relief bowled him over, and the man slapped his hand against the car. 

“Hey, keep it steady, idio—”

The first puncture was into the kidneys. Again, the empty space shrank. Finstock felt warm for the first time in a _long_ time. The man hit his head on the hood. Finstock had been young, sloppy. He didn’t know what areas would be best, he didn’t know the balance between efficient stab wounds and purposefully _bad_ ones. 

Finstock got four hits in, the kidney, a shallow cut from the middle of his back to his navel, lower intestines, and heart. Finstock’s breath puffed into the witching hour air. He caught the man before he could fall forward, and lowered him to the ground, their breath sharing the same space, until it was just Finstock puffing in and out.

When he made it home, his mother had held him back. 

“You look good, Bobby.” 

His father raised his eyebrows. 

“Something special happen?”

Finstock winked at his father. 

“I found my way of fishing.” 

Fishing involved tackle, bait, and the allure of catch and release. The fruits of labor paying off. When he was a kid and went fishing with his dad, he’d realized that fishing was not like hunting. It was about patience, less about the day’s capture and about the _feeling_ of fishing. 

Finstock’s tackle box was a hand drill, the smallest drill bit he could buy at Home Depot, and a hunting knife. 

Instead of sitting in a boat on a quiet lake, Finstock drove to rest stops in the middle of the night. He went after cars that weren’t remarkable in anyway, never any with baby seats in them, or sleeping kids in the back. He’d pick his cars, pop the hood, drill a small hole in the coolant hose, before quietly closing the hood. He found that the perfect number of cars was eight. 

Finstock would wait twenty minutes, then he’d get on the road. 

Disconnecting the hose would cause an immediate warning in the car’s system the moment someone started the ignition. A cut would buy five minutes of time, which would make it easier for the driver to walk back to the rest stop to a phone booth, and there would be more traffic from the exit being so close. The smallest hole, however, could allow up to a half an hour of driving before the car would start to overheat. 

Unsuspecting fish swimming along dark, winding roads, until eventually they’d have to pull over.

Sometimes it was enough to catch and release, to get out of the car with an “aw, shucks, do you need help?” Women were smart and never got out of the car. Bobby would check the hood, find the hole he put there, and offer to tie a cloth around it. He leaned his hip against the car, his gloves on and say, “I tied it nice and tight, should get you to a gas station.” 

Men were much more confident getting out of a car. While women knew the dangers of being alone at night, men never worried. They were _men,_ shadowy things in the dark only scared children. Men were happy puff out their chests, lean over the hood, and curse at the cloud of steam that hit them in the face. Men never worried, never feared for the worse until a sharpened knife slipped in to pierce their arteries. 

Over the years, Finstock liked to balance between good cuts and bad cuts. Good cuts were efficient, maximum damage to arteries and were fatal, no hope of recovery. Bad cuts were… just how they sounded. Cosmetic. Shallow. Random. Variety was the spice of life, and so after the arteries were irreversibly damaged, Finstock would let instinct guide him to what he _felt_ would be most satisfying. 

When Finstock read books about killers, it was often describe an unquenchable rush. _Bloodlust._ Adrenalin-pumping, cocks throbbing, screams wailing, everything was so dramatic and over the top. 

Finstock would lower the men to the ground, their legs shaking as they soiled their trousers. With their ass in the gravel, blood seeping from their body and soaking through their clothes, Finstock would breathe with them. In and out, in and out, until it was just him breathing alone. 

It was better than any meditation or massage. He’d feel centered, present, and aware. It was not euphoric or unhinged bliss, just… 

Nice. Pleasant. Tranquil. 

He’d go on a fishing trip once a year, at the end of summer, and for decades, that had worked perfectly. Lately, he didn’t feel the hollowness in his chest. He didn’t pretend to not know why. 

“You’re not worried?”

Bobby had stopped going on his fishing trips two years into his relationship with Kira. The feeling of wholeness, of peace… it was present, it had clicked into permanence the moment Kira had whispered, _I love you._

Finstock switched off the faucet. He turned, to meet Kira’s gaze. She straddled the couch, her head tilted to the side. He marveled at how quickly she’d recovered from being questioned by an FBI Agent. He could tell she was still shaky, but her kisses… they eased the own anxious tension around his heart. The dates she mentioned… the methods of death. 

_Wasn’t there a reason you always made sure she was somewhere else when you went fishing?_

“Worried about what?”

The towel was damp in his fingers, fibers soft against his callouses. Kira’s fingers spread out over the couch, squeezing the cushioned back. Her lips curled, a ghostly smile, happy, but also sort of sad. 

“That he’ll figure out it’s you.”

Damp fiber slipped through his numb fingers. The towel fell to the floor, and his heartbeat rocketed. When he went fishing, his heart was steady, calm. The last time he’d been nervous was before he proposed. 

_Kira Yukimura, the only person who can make my heart race._ His knees locked and sweat sprung up on his palms. It wasn’t a question of _if_ he did it,_ if_ he was a murderer. Her brown eyes held his, pinning him in place like the night they met, sheltered in a Volvo in the pouring rain. He couldn’t look away, even when his eyes began to burn, when the hysteria kept _pushing,_ barely contained behind his teeth. 

“H-How long have you known?” 

Kira rested her head on one hand, her fingers toying with her hair. 

“A few years.” 

He had to reach out and steady himself on the sink. His heart was a fragile bird cupped in Kira’s gentle palms. All it would take was a brief squeeze and it would be over. But… if he were to give himself, fully, to anyone, it would be her. 

“You didn’t,” he shuddered, turning to steal another look at her, “you never _said anything.” _

_To me, to the police._ His shirt began to stick to his chest. He felt wild and cornered, even though he could run, he had enough distance between them. He heaved out a breath, his vision swimming as the unspoken _**Why**_ echoed in the room. 

“Before you, I didn’t believe in love for myself. I’ve told you that before.” Kira sighed, shifting on the couch, her eyes dropping for a moment. “But… I also was never _fully_ happy before. It felt like I was cutting myself into pieces, and different pieces were for different people. Pieces that made my parents happy wouldn’t make my boss happy, and Satomi’s pieces weren’t the same as Peter’s. There has always been this,” Kira’s voice cracked, “_compromise_ that I thought I’d have keep repeating and adjusting my entire life. I was told it would be unreasonable to expect anyone could love me for _all_ of me.” She smiled, fuller, even as a few tears slipped down her cheeks. “Until you.” She ran her fingers down the couch, her smile wistful. “Murder is wrong, no shit. I know that. But,” she exhaled in a long _whoosh,_ “you make me happy, and it feels _so good_ to be really happy _with_ you.”

Waves of affection, sadness, and _love_ crashed into him, through him, until he was straightening, breathing deep and even. In an ideal world, no one should compromise morality for happiness. In an ideal world, everyone could be happy fishing and finding love. 

“I love you,” he whispered, “Kira. I… I _love_ you.” 

Kira got up off the couch. Her skin was smooth against his, warm, and she wiped away the tears he hadn’t realized he shed. 

“I know.” 

They kissed, and Finstock wasn’t sure who started it, or if they simply both came together. He thought of keeping it brief and sweet for a few seconds before Kira pulled him closer. Her tongue sent prickling hot lust down his spine, and the noise she made when he bit down on her lower lip had him stumbling forward, pushing her backwards toward their bedroom. He loved her before, but now, knowing she knew every part of him… 

Kira hit the mattress and she kicked off her pants with a dazzling laugh. Finstock felt drunk, crawling on top of her and dragging his cheek against the swell of her breast, covered by her t-shirt. Kira arched her back, a breathless mixture of a whimper and giggle set Finstock ablaze with adoration. 

_I love you,_ he marveled as she tugged on his shirt, _I love every part of you._

::::

All the post-its on Kira Yukimura were shredded. He donated her books to the local library. Chris suggested Stiles take more time off. _Get a hobby or something._ Stiles said he’d do that as soon as Chris got something to make him relax after work, calling his bluff… until Chris dragged Stiles to a dog adoption event with a gruff, “I’m getting a dog. Help me pick one out.” Stiles sucked it up after that and started collecting succulents. The lady at the plant nursery was named Rosa, and last time Stiles showed up she gave him a tiny seedling for free. 

Seasons bled into each other, summer dancing into fall, decaying into winter. 

Life went on. 

One day, in a Barnes & Noble, Stiles found himself drifting, numbed and not from the cold. The sounds of Christmas music blurred into grey sludge, warbled conversations mooting out into white noise. Stiles squeezed his arm, hoping the pain would plant his feet back on the ground, would end the anxious loop his thoughts spiraled into when he was alone. 

_Everyone makes mistakes, Chris didn’t drag your name through the mud, the only person you disappointed was yourself, no big deal. _

He hadn’t talked to Coach since. He couldn’t bring himself to face him, to look him in the eye after accusing his fiance of seven murders. Stiles stalked back to the bargain section, each _thud_ of his legs rattled his knees. He knew half of it was pride, hurt at being wrong, at Kira carefully dismantling each date until all his theories were dust in the wind. The other was… shame at not catching himself sooner, to stop himself from barreling ahead on a theory that wasn’t close to being true. 

Stiles breathed deep, and something caught the corner of his eye. A big red sticker that boasted seventy-five percent off, on a large thick book.

_The Encyclopedia of the Human Body._

It was a large book with photo-finish gloss on every page. It was exactly as Kira Yukimra had described, the entire human body divided by systems, sections, and stripped down layer by layer with in-depth descriptions of every part of the body. Stiles’s fingers shook as he turned each page, skimming over descriptions of circulatory and nerve systems, branches of capillaries and ligaments stretching out like moss across a stone. It was $4.95. _It would be stupid **not** to buy it,_ Stiles reasoned as he got into the check out line. 

At first, Stiles dumped the book on a shelf he kept by apartment door. He reasoned that it was an impulse buy, a useful reference if he ever needed it. 

He managed to ignore it for three days. 

Colorful post-its returned to his office, neon highlighter ink stained his fingers, and when he wasn’t working on an open case with Chris, his thoughts were preoccupied with cold cases. He started from scratch, and with the encyclopedia tucked under one arm, he dove back in. 

All of the cases he’d previously attached to Kira Yukimura’s work had the same, put in the coined terminology from Kira herself, efficiency wounds. The first wound was always the lumbar artery, penetrated by a blade with no visible signs that the murderer was distressed. When Stiles studied the wounds on the body, he was thrown back to his academy days examining cadavers where wounds were done on site by a calm mortician. His instructor’s hand didn’t shake, and neither did the murderer of Stiles’s cold cases. 

Once the lumbar artery was severed, the next two to go were the aortic arch and the right brachial artery. Any wounds after that were “flourish,” not necessary for the lethal outcome, but garnishes to the already complete meal. The more he broke down the method of murder, the more trends he noticed in otherwise discarded cold cases. Stiles went down to the archives… and did a specific search through cold cases. 

“Stiles,” Chris sighed when he stepped into Stiles’s office after giving him space for six weeks during his research bender, “I thought you were taking a break from the cold cases.” 

“I did,” Stiles swallowed half-chewed cold pizza, “I took like… four whole months off. And I’ve been pacing myself, okay? I’m taking my time.” Stiles wrung his hands. “But… I wanted your advice before I really start scaring myself.” Chris nodded, taking a seat. “I took another pass at the cold case files and… remember when Kira said there were efficiency wounds and flourish wounds in her work? Well, all the efficiency wounds in these cases are the same and happen in the exact same order, the differences come in the flourish but… every time it is lumbar artery, aortic arch, and right brachial artery.”

Stiles hadn’t gotten sleep lately, waking up every five minutes in a panic. He’d catch his breath, close his eyes, and would wake up in five minutes. Kira Yukimura couldn’t be the killer, not only for her aliabies but because at the end of the day…

“When I dug through the archives and looked for this pattern…” Stiles shuddered, bringing his legs up on his chair, hugging his knees. “It started in 1992, and ended in 2017. At least one murder a year, all at the end of summer, though some years there were two. If this is,” Stiles’s mouth twisted into a sour, uncomfortable frown, “_something,_ that means someone killed thirty-one people over twenty-five years.” Stiles breathed through the tightness in his chest despite the rush of salty saliva that flooded his tongue. “These were thought to be hitchhiking gone wrong, an unstable stranger killing a driver, but… targeting the arteries. The murderer knew what they were doing. With these three arteries compromised, there would be no hope of survival. Everything else would be _flourish.”_

Chris leaned forward and took Stiles’s shaking hands into his own. 

“Okay. I’ll take a look, see what kind of rocks I can kick over. But you need to get some sleep.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes. 

“No shit. Every time I try I jerk awake, over and over.” Stiles dragged his hand down his face. “I’m gonna get NyQuil or something. That will _have_ to knock me out.” 

Chris let Stiles’s hands slip free. 

“Want to spend the night at my place?” Stiles lifted his eyes up, his brows raising in a silent question. “I’ve seen this before, when being alone won’t let you sleep. You can sleep in my daughter’s room, and you’ll know I’ll be right down the hall.” 

One night turned into two and a half months. 

:::::

Chris realized that if the autopsies didn’t illuminate anything, maybe a report on the impounded car and repairs _would._

The 2017 victim’s car had been evaluated to have no problems _except_ for a small hole in the coolant hose. In the mechanic’s notes, it remarked that it wasn’t because of wear-and-tear, that it was too perfect in diameter to be an accident. 

Chris went to Home Depot and bought the smallest drill bit they sold. He drilled a hole into Stiles’s coolant hose and Stiles flashed him a thumbs up as he started the car. 

With the smallest hole drilled into the coolant hose, Stiles was able to drive for thirty-four minutes before his car warned him about possible overheating. 

“So they pull over to ‘help,’” Stiles used air quotes as Chris joined him on the side of the road, the hood popped. “The driver leans over to see the problem, which gives our guy access to the lumbar artery. Stab, I’m hurt,” Stiles turned around, “I’m in shock, I’m scared, I expose my front, where he makes the other two efficency cuts. Doesn’t take longer than fifteen seconds.” 

The urge to rush was calmed by Chris’s steady presence, note-taking, and with him not allowing Stiles more than two cups of coffee after three. Stiles never realized that he didn’t need to exhaust himself to prove that he was working the hardest. He didn’t need to turn his brain into jelly by staring at the same files until _something_ shakes loose. 

Sometimes, it was better to take time.

The FBI was built on paperwork, and while tedious, it was necessary. Stiles and Chris sent out requests to various mechanics for records, and at the end of spring, they got a hit.

:::: 

Peter had just settled into the couch, comfortable pajamas adorned with piping hot tea in hand, when someone knocked on his door, three times, than continuous like they were working out drafts of a percussive beat. He got up, glancing at the clock. It was just past eight o’clock. 

“Coming,” the knocking continued. “I said I was coming!” Peter yanked the door open to see Bobby and Kira, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. “Kira, I hate to say this, but you’ve been a terrible influence on him. He used to just be grumpy, now he’s a delinquent.” Peter stepped aside, but they didn’t come in. He frowned. “What’s going on?”

Kira bounced on the balls of her feet. 

“We’re getting married!” 

Peter snorted. 

“Yes, typically that is what follows an engagement, Kira.” 

“No,” Kira giggled and Bobby pressed a laugh-tainted kiss against her temple. “We’re getting married tonight at a courthouse. Wanna come?” 

Peter would argue, years later, that he was swept up in the shock and giddiness of them both. He actually left his house only dressed in pajamas and slippers. He got into Bobby’s car and they blasted obnoxious pop music that had Peter laughing himself to tears, and they had to drive a few towns over to a courthouse they’d called ahead. Peter remembered the flowery air fondly, how he felt like a teenager again, where judging eyes slipped off him like oil and water. 

He was laughing, he was out of breath, and he overflowed with adoration for his friends as they marched into the courthouse. Giggles smoothed out into shared whispers. Kira and Bobby were always shoving each other, affectionate and loud, but at the courthouse they quieted. 

Bobby held her hands in his, his manic grin softening into candlelight romanticism. Kira caught her breath, her cheeks pink, and she cleared her throat. 

“I swear,” Kira’s voice trembled for a moment, “I swear to love you, in sickness, in health, everything in between. Until death.” 

Peter had been to plenty of weddings, in various forms of participation and purpose. He knew the ceremony, the pageantry of marriage. He hadn’t cried at any of the weddings in his past. 

Yet that night, in a stuffy courthouse where the officiator was fighting down yawns, Peter’s eyes burned, welled, and tears overtook him. He vaguely heard Bobby repeat the vows back to her, he saw their two blurry forms come together in a kiss, and he felt them hug him after. They rode back, with red-rimmed eyes and a marriage certificate in the glove compartment. 

“What about your parents?” 

Peter lounged in the back, his skin still sensitive from crying. The highway stretched out into the dark unknown. Kira caught his eye in the rearview mirror. 

“Eh, we’re thinking of throwing a big get-together in a year. Invite everyone and it will be a surprise wedding anniversary party.” She held his watery gaze. “Thanks for being our witness, Peter.” 

“Of course.” 

The ride lulled into silence, the radio off, the windows rolled down, and the engine humming them forward. Spring wind curled in Peter’s hair. At the time, he thought it was quite romantic, these two strange weirdos coming together, having this slice of marriage to themselves, with Peter as the sole witness. Kira was always a little offbeat despite her parents’ best efforts. Why should her marriage be any different? 

It wouldn’t be for a few months that Peter would be faced with a different reality. One where Kira knew a wife could not be made to testify against her husband. A reality where Kira quietly halved the trust where her residuals and majority of her adaptation money went. A reality where Kira added her parents as beneficiaries to that trust, just after Bobby. 

Peter would think back to that night, when he had a carefree smile on his face as Bobby pumped the gas and Kira stared at him adoringly. 

“So,” Bobby asked forty minutes after getting married, “want to get burgers? Let’s make this a real road trip and get some fast food.” 

Kira turned the radio on and pop music dissipated the bittersweet nostalgia. It eliminated the angst of his past and the looming uncertainty of tomorrow. They drove rooted in the present, unaware, or maybe purposefully ignorant, of the investigation that was coming. 

::::

Carol Larson was forty-four, a mother of two, and on August 26th, 2016, had car trouble because her coolant hose had been compromised. 

“It’s been so long since then,” Carol had gotten off work and welcomed Stiles and Chris into her Arizona home. “The most I can remember is the insurance being such a headache because the hole was too clean for it to be normal tubing erosion.” She led them to the kitchen, where a few dirty dishes lingered in the sink and coffee burbled away. “You two want coffee?”

“Yes, please.” Stiles sat on one of the stools by the counter. “If you’re having some.” 

Carol laughed, a little dry and weary. 

“During the week, it’s necessary.” 

It was just past noon, which meant they had a four hours before school let out and her husband returned home. Stiles gratefully wrapped his hands around the hot ceramic cup, blowing on his coffee while Chris took the offered cream and sugar. 

“What do you remember about that night beside the overheating? Did anyone stop to help you?”

The Larson home was filled with tchotchkes from airports, reminders of the states they had visited. Snow globes littered tables, travel books filled shelves, and the yellow corduroy couch had patches sewn on in an attempt to fight aging. It reminded Stiles of his childhood home, welcoming, lived-in. 

“Now that you mention it,” Carol tapped her nails along her coffee cup, “someone did. I’d already called AAA at that point, but I left the hood up because it was steaming so much. A man pulled over to make sure I was all right.” 

Carol had been heading Westbound. The victim who died that night was Eastbound. Black coffee eased over Stiles’s tongue. 

“Could you walk us through it?” 

When her overheating warning started, Carol had immediately pulled over. She drove a Niisan, and it was relatively new and hadn’t given her any problems. She was scared because of how fast the temperature gave went up and it was so late at night. She popped the hood and steam came plumed into the night air. She immediately called AAA and they told her to sit tight and wait, she wouldn’t have to wait more than forty-five minutes. 

“At that point, I was just tired and frustrated. I sat in my car once I felt it wasn’t going to explode and killed time on my phone.” She laughed, a half-shrug. “I kept the hood up because I wanted it to keep cool. That’s why the guy pulled over, he thought I was still in trouble.” Carol took a long sip of coffee. “I didn’t get out of my car, you know, just in case. It was the middle of the night and all that, but I cracked the window and told him AAA was on their way. He left pretty quickly, after making sure I was okay to wait alone.” 

Twenty minutes later, the killer would switch to Eastbound and find someone who got out of the car. 

“Do you remember what he looks like?”

“Yes. White, big teeth, black hair, probably around my age, maybe older.” Carol paused and Chris leaned forward. “You know, I might still have the footage. My husband made me get a dash cam. He keeps them archived on his computer.” 

Stiles told himself not to get too excited as she led them up the stairs, to the master bedroom with a desktop. She logged in, and went through organized folders of video files. Chris kept his hand on Stiles’s shoulder as she skimmed through the timeline, and then let it play. 

A car had pulled in front of her, the plates visible, and Stiles wasn’t even looking at the numbers. He stared at the lumbreing shadow with a carefree gait. The sound wasn’t great, but it was enough to pick up the staticy exchange. 

_“—thing all right?” _

_“Yes, overheated apparently. AAA is on it’s way though. Thanks for stopping.”_

The man hovered when he saw that she wasn’t opening the door, that the window was only open a couple of inches. Stiles strained his eyes and saw that he was wearing a tracksuit. 

_“— a look if you want?”_

_“No, it’s okay, they’re on their way.”_

_“— safe. Have a nice night!”_

The man ducked down, to be visible through the windshield with a wave. The camera caught his face.

Chris reached over and paused the feed. Blood rushed in Stiles’s ears, like an approaching wave casting a shadow over him, a deafening rush of water about to come crashing down. Chris said something. Carol printed the screen. Stiles’s throat tightened around the words _don’t bother._ Big teeth and a loud laugh. Stiles didn’t need to stare at the picture, to tape it up on the wall as they paged through low-level criminals with a record. 

_I know who you are,_ Stiles thought in disbelief, as it all came crashing down. 

::::

Knowing that Stiles Stilinski was on his case was like walking blindly forward with a noose around his neck, never knowing when he was finally going to fall. Finstock recognized inevitability when he saw it, and Stiles was like a dog that locked its jaws, not letting go until the case was closed. It was late spring when Finstock saw an unmarked car in the staff’s parking lot. 

The noose tightened. 

Finstock went to his car like he always did, grumbling and shouldering his bags into the backseat. He rolled his shoulders and his hands didn’t shake when he opened the door. The trick was to act like he _wasn’t_ waiting, to keep his shoulders the normal amount of tense, not the waiting-for-an-FBI-Agent-to-arrest-me tense. He texted Kira and put his phone in the cup holder. He started the car and had twenty minutes to get to their house. 

He wasn’t surprised to find that Kira was not home. He’d parked over the gravel that had been kicked up from her car. He took off his shoes and puttered around the kitchen. 

Before Kira, when he’d think about the possibility of getting caught, he had never been afraid. He knew that what he did every summer was objectively wrong. Morally evil. If he was caught, he’d be punished. He had a system that worked for decades, but eventually technology and luck would catch up to him. 

After Kira, he felt fear. He was fine to give up most things in his life for the sake of balance and order… but Kira had him acting selfishly. 

Finstock ignored the creak of the back porch as grim knocks fell on the front door. 

Stiles Stilinski stood on his doorstep, face ashen, gun on his hip, and determination winding through every ligament. 

“You look like shit.” Finstock stepped aside, a wordless invitation. “Come in. I think we still have some coffee left.” Finstock waved to the coat rack and shoe rack even though he knew Stiles would not be hanging up his coat or taking off his shoes. Finstock leaned against the kitchen island. “So,” Finstock’s voice cracked. “What’s going on?” 

Stiles moved like he was accounting for extra weight that pulled at his lips and shoulders. He remained equidistant from the kitchen and the door. 

“I figured out the cold cases… your summer fishing trips you’d always talk about at practice.” Stiles heaved out a sigh. In movies, the confrontation seemed easy, adrenalin inspiring victory and justice. Stiles just felt wrung dry. “Thirty-one fucking people, Finstock.” 

“Was that the final count? I didn’t keep track.” 

Finstock was grateful for the counter at his back, keeping him upright as he struggled to stop his legs from shaking. Stiles shuddered, odd and uneven like he’d touched an electric fence. His laugh cracked through the air like chalk. 

“You know, I was fucking _worried_ about you, when I thought it was Kira.” It hurt to see the kid’s lower lip wobble, to see the increased shine in his eyes. “I almost got a fucking ulcer, being all, _oh shit, Coach is about to marry a psychopath.”_

Finstock managed a hollow smile. 

“I did appreciate the concern.”

Stiles’s smile plunged, a strange wave-like motion of mirth and despair. Finstock stayed still, straining his ear for the creak of wood, breathing in deep to see if he could smell gasoline. 

“Does she know?” Finstock took a step forward and Stiles immediately drew his weapon, clicking off the safety faster than Finstock could blink. “Back against the counter. If you try _anything_ I’ve timed a detailed report to be sent to my supervisor in three hours, regardless. You will be found even if it’s not by me.” 

Finstock obeyed, ignoring the pain from the tile digging into his back. Stiles took a step forward, and the boy that was more smartass than lacrosse player vanished. This was _Agent Stilinski._ Finstock kept his palms facing toward, a silent sign for _peace_ and _I’m unarmed._

“Jesus Christ, Stiles, I’m not going to hurt you.” 

Stiles huffed, a silent _why not_ that allowed Finstock a peek behind the professional mask. 

“Did she know?” 

“Aren’t you going to read me my rights?”

“I will.” Stiles took a half-step forward. “Did Kira know what you are—”

The rope around Finstock’s neck fell free as a blade sank into Stiles’s back. Stiles sucked in air, shocked, twisting around. Finstock ran forward and knocked the gun from his hands before Stiles came face-to-face with Kira. 

“Oh God,” Kira left the knife in his back. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Oh geez,” Kira wiped her eyes. “Everything is ready I just, I just didn’t want you to get hurt, oh God.” It didn’t matter how much she rubbed her eyes, the tears kept flowing. “I tried to get it right so it w-wouldn’t be fatal.” 

Stiles’s knees gave out and Finstock caught him before he could fully fall to the floor. He eased him down, catching Stiles’s hands when he tried to hit him. 

“It’s alright. You’re okay.” Finstock pulled Stiles forward so he could rest his chin on Stiles’s shoulder, getting a good look at where the knife sat on his back. “You’ll be fine as long as you’re smart and you don’t panic.”

Stiles heaved in a breath. 

“F-fuck you,” Stiles ground out as he pulled the knife out of his back. 

::::

Stiles could already hear the lecture he was going to get from Chris. _There’s a reason we’re partners, it goes hand-in-hand that I would be with you._ Guilt and pain made it hard to breathe and sent white speckles flashing in his vision as he drew his arm back. Finstock moved back quickly, pushing Kira into the hall just as Stiles threw the knife. It went wide, he wasn’t focused enough to aim. It skittered across the floor. 

_Not very smart of me, asshole,_ Stiles thought as he fell forward. He heard their footsteps retreating further into the house, toward the master bedroom. If Stiles strained his ears he could hear Kira’s panic, the trauma of harming another human being. _Not even a little bit of a killer._

His back was soaked with blood. It squished when he tried to drag himself across the floor. It _schlopped_ when he twisted at the smell of smoke and the sound of fire crackling. Heat rapidly approached, and Stiles sat, in a mockery meditation pose. Blood on his hands and face dried, cracked under the heat, while it continued to ooze out of his back. When he cried, the tears dried halfway down his cheeks, wetting dried crimson that flaked off in ashy bunches. 

Later, when pen lights would flash in his eyes to see if he’d been concussed, Stiles wouldn’t be able to say why he just _sat_ there, waiting to burn. He closed his eyes against the heat. If he stayed in the burning house, he’d never have to explain that his mentor, the _reason_ he became an agent, was a murderer. He’d never have to go to his apartment and live with the fact that someone so monstrous had been so close. 

So loved. 

Someone kicked in the door, yelling and stumbling past Stiles, throwing their hands up when the fire got too close. They screamed Kira’s name, then Bobby’s. 

“She’s not here.” Stiles slurred, his vision slipping in and out of focus. _Fuck, I think I’m going to throw up._ “He isn’t here either.” 

“Who the _fuck_ are you then?” 

Whoever it was, a man, was approaching hysteria. He tried to get into the hallway but the fire forced him back. Stiles closed his eyes, and when he opened them he was outside in the cold air. Heat blasted his right side, the house ablaze. The man who must have dragged him out stared at the house. Tears rolled down his scarred cheeks, half of his face twisted with old burn scars. Stiles flung his arm out, catching the man on the knee. 

“Need a hospital.” The man went blurry, his features distorted and hidden as he turned. “Please. M’bleeding. Real bad.” 

“Where?” The man spat it out like Stiles was lying. He pulled Stiles into a sitting position. “I don’t see anything— oh shit.” Stiles needed to keep more blood in his body but it kept leaking out of him, a spidget permanently broken. “Fuck.” 

Strong hands reached around him, pressing against the wound, slowing the flow. Stiles spread his legs when the man pulled him into his lap. Stiles’s chin rested in the crook of his shoulder, saliva dripping down his mouth and soaking the man’s shirt. 

The man grunted and shifted Stiles in his lap, his hand pressing down hard while the other fumbled in his pockets. 

Stiles watched the house burn, his eyes wet and stinging with ash. He squeezed the man back, like they were hugging, not preventing further blood loss. The man’s voice was hoarse and ragged, sobbing into his phone. 

“Hey,” the man shook him, his free hand tugging on Stiles’s shirt. “Stay awake. Tell me your name. What do you do?” 

The man’s other hand pressed hard against the wound, sending white-hot licks of pain down Stiles’s spine. He writhed in the stranger’s lap, so cold despite the fire blazing nearby. The man shook him again. 

Stiles closed his eyes against the flames. 

“I don’t know.”

::::

Winters in Beacon Hills were quiet, never cold enough for snow, but brisk enough for people to dig into the back of their closets for flannel and scarves. Peter dressed in his finest cashmere sweater, basking in the beige paired with dark jeans and loafers. The house was clean, and he’d been using a new facial cream since the air was so dry. He’d just finished applying the lightest amount of cologne before he heard tires crunch in the driveway. 

He closed his eyes and took three deep breaths. 

The doorbell rang. 

Peter opened his door with a practiced smile, not too happy, but not too dour. 

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” The two young men on his doorstep were dressed down in jeans and hoodies, one tall and one short. The shorter one was visibly flustered. “Please, come in. Make yourselves comfortable.” 

It had been five years since Kira and Bobby’s house caught on fire. Five years since he’d called an ambulance for the man bleeding in his arms, and five years since tragedy and horror rocked Beacon Hills down to its core. One of their own had committed evil acts for _years_ and no one had suspected anything. A man beloved to his community was… really a monster. 

Five years since Kira Yukimura was missing and presumed dead at the hands of her husband. 

It was a salacious story that attracted all sorts of journalists and worse, asking for interviews, wanting to get on the property that Peter owned. Vultures, most of them, and Peter expressed no interest in any of them. 

“Thank you so much, Mr. Hale.” Short stammered, cowed by Peter’s half-handsome, half-nightmarish face. “Is it okay if we get some B-roll?” He motioned to the small camera crew lingering on the porch. “Just shots of the house, the interior. No microphones, and you’ll never be on camera.” 

Peter hesitated, just long enough to make Short squirm. 

“Of course. Please, come in.” 

The camera crew shuffled in, unpacking their gear methodically as Short and Tall followed Peter into the dining room. He already had charis pulled out, and they took the hint. He had French press coffee waiting and poured them cups before filling his own. The chair creaked when Tall Boy sat down, and he nudged his glasses up so he could scratch under his eye. 

“As we discussed, I can only go over the events of the night and what has already been released to the press. Anything involving investigators at the time or now, I can’t divulge, and really,” Peter shrugged, “I don’t know much in that regard.” 

“Is that when you got,” Tall Boy gestured to his own face, “your burns?” 

Short slumped, cheeks red. Peter didn’t bat an eye and made sure not to clench his jaw. 

“No. These were from an earlier tragedy in my life. Fire seems to have a taste for me.” 

Tall hummed, his lips twitching like he wanted to smile but knew better. Short leaned forward, his elbows on the table. 

“Why did you choose us, Mr. Hale? For five years you haven’t let any news organization onto the property. Even legit guys like Anderson Cooper. When I first got your email I thought it was a joke.”

Peter took a long drag of coffee and leaned back in his chair. 

“Honestly? Because I think Kira would get a kick out of it.” 

It didn’t take long for them to let their eagerness overtake them, rounding up the camera crew to explore the property and the ash remains of Kira and Bobby’s house. Peter stayed on the porch, listening to Tall and Short slip on their online personalities. Micced up and ready to go, they set out along the overgrown path Peter showed them. 

Peter opened his laptop once he could no longer hear them. 

There were nights when Peter would wake up, screams lodged in his throat and the feeling of blood pushing against his fingers. There were nights when he saw Kira’s body burning in front of him, others where it was Bobby’s. Other nights… he’d wake from a wonderfully terrible dream. 

Dreams where Peter was in the back of Kira’s car, the windows down, and her new wedding ring glittering on her finger. Dreams that were so peaceful and loving until he woke up. He hated those dreams the worst. No matter how many layers he piled on, he’d still shiver the entire day. 

He dipped his fingers into his piping hot coffee and still felt cold. With his other hand, he sent a text.

_Rio?_

When he pulled his fingers out of his coffee the skin was red, irritated from the heat. Peter still felt cold. 

His phone buzzed within the minute. 

::::

“You look good.” 

Stiles hadn’t _planned_ to say that, it just slipped out. His leg had been bouncing since he boarded his flight. He smelled like fermented sweat and anxiety, bottled up in a three and a half hour bus ride from the airport to winding roads in Brazil. As he jostled from stop to stop, Stiles kept thinking _this is the last time._

Because it _had_ to be the last time even though Stiles had _insisted_ it was the last time for the past three years. 

Going on exotic vacations with Peter Hale, a former witness in the Robert Finstock case, was a _terrible_ and _unethical_ idea. 

It had started as a joke in the hospital, when Stiles had pulled through by the skin of his teeth. His dad was there, but also a man with a half-burned face. Peter had looked terrible then, pale with his shirt dried and crusty with Stiles’s blood. _“Thank God,”_ Stiles managed, _“I haven’t done all the travelling I’d been planning yet.”_

His dad didn’t laugh, but Peter did. 

After hours of depositions, debriefing, and closed trials, the story went like this: 

Robert Finstock was guilty of the murders that Stiles had been tracking. Kira Yukimura’s blood was caked along the bedroom walls where the fire had started, accelerated by gasoline. The working theory was that Finstock killed her and her body burned with the severity of the fire. He was on the run, alone, and it was only a matter of time before they found him. 

That had been five years ago.

“Thanks,” Peter snapped Stiles back into the present. He was draped in breathable linens, designer sunglasses hiding him from the sun. “I’ve switched to a new moisturizer.” 

Stiles toed off his busted sneakers and took in the bungalow Peter rented. It was gorgeous, expansive, tucked away and guarded from the road by trees, but up high enough that he could see the ocean from the south side of the house. He let his backpack fall to the floor, the various keychains he’d picked up clattering against the tile. Words stuck to the inside of his throat like cement, clogging his airway. 

“Here,” Peter helped Stiles out of his first shirt, grimacing at how it clung to his skin, soaked and stained with sweat. “Take a bath. Wash the travel off.” 

Shared trauma was a hell of a bond. Chris told Stiles to see a therapist, to come over for dinner, get a gym membership. Keep active. If he kept moving, he wouldn’t think about getting taken off the case or being put on leave for a month while the Bureau conducted an investigation on his conduct. _Stubborn and foolhardy_ were words that were thrown around. 

If he did enough pilates, spin classes, and boxing, maybe he’d be able to ignore the stares that burned through his back and the whispers that filled his ears. 

_There goes Stilinski, in and out of the Bureau in record time. _

_Oh shit, isn’t that the kid whose teacher was a serial killer?_

_I bet he let him get away._

When he felt his edges fraying, Stiles clung to the last thing that made him feel whole. It was also the most traumatizing night of his life, but he’d been _alive,_ he’d been _fighting_ for something that mattered. He’d dream about bleeding in Peter Hale’s arms, at that time a stranger. Sometimes the dream would just be the memory beat-for-beat. Sometimes he’d see Finstock coming, though his face was completely different and he’d act deranged like a bad B-movie slasher. Sometimes he’d accompanied by Kira. Other times she’d be screaming in the flames. 

Sometimes he’d die in Peter’s arms. 

Lately, the dream had changed. He’d still be bleeding, head woozy, and the fire would still be blistering his face… but he’d be naked. He’d still lose blood, he’d still shiver in his arms, but somehow he’d be hard and Peter’s hand would still press against his wound to slow the blood flow, but the other would drift down, between Stiles’s aching thighs.

He splashed water onto his face. 

_This is the last time._ He scrubbed grime off his legs and did _not_ think about how he’d been waking up hard, aching, just two strokes away from a satisfying orgasm. _This is the last fucking time._

“Ah, you look much better.” Peter was on porch, picturesque in the setting sun. Somehow, he even made third-degree burns attractive. Stiles slouched in a chair next to Peter, gratefully accepting the ice water Peter poured for him. “Feel better?” 

“Mm.” Brilliant tangerine sparkles glittered on the ocean. “This is a hell of a view.”

“I’m sure it’s better than whatever monochrome hell they’ve confined you to.” 

Stiles tried not to flinch and smile through it, but it felt sour, expired. 

No one got fired in the FBI. That was a lesson Chris didn’t teach him, but Stiles learned anyway. Being _fired_ would cause too much attention. Instead, Stiles was taken off leave, his trial took about five minutes for the judge to reason that Stiles acted in good conscious, no matter how misguided, and he was in the Bureau as if nothing changed. Chris wasn’t in his office when Stiles returned, a different supervisor with a bored face informed Stiles that he had an hour to move his belongings to a new office. One even smaller, in the basement with no windows and air conditioning that kept the temperature at sixty-five degrees. _“Paperwork is the backbone of the FBI,”_ the man squeezed Stiles’s shoulder as he entered his small office, boxes and boxes of paper stacked to the ceiling in a barricade around his desk, _“I’m sure you’re happy to do your part to serve your country.”_

He never saw Chris again. 

“We can’t keep doing this.” 

Stiles forced the words out, hating how they scratched up the sides of his throats, like they were fighting tooth and nail to remain inside. Peter, to his credit, didn’t bat an eye, simply sipped whatever elaborate cocktail he made. 

“Why not? Vacation does the mind and body good.”

“Because it’s not— it’s not appropriate.” Peter scoffed and Stiles turned away from the beautiful views and the warm sun he hadn’t seen in months. “I serious, Peter. You’re a witness to a case I’ve been _removed_ from. I can’t… this isn’t right.” 

Peter waved his hand as if he were shooing away a fly. 

“You were removed years ago. What does it matter if you travel with an acquaintance to a nice hideaway?”

“It’s not healthy. Isn’t seeing me like salt in a wound?” 

Peter froze. Stiles grimaced, but refused to back down. Peter took off his sunglasses, his charming smirk gone. 

“Is that how you feel about me?” 

When his job felt like a jail sentence and his social life was reduced to voicemails from his father, an email from Peter Hale was the strangest olive branch Stiles had ever seen. It began innocuously enough, asking after Stiles’s health. Stiles _shouldn’t_ have answered, he should have just deleted it, forgot about it. 

Instead, he replied, and replied, and replied. 

“No.” Stiles sighed. “Of course not.” 

Peter rolled his eyes but it didn’t hide the tight lines around his mouth, the shimmer in his eyes. He leaned back in his chair like relaxing was a chore. 

“Then I don’t see a problem.”

All of their vacations were in South America. Peter claimed to love the sun and sights. Stiles knew that if he were a murderer on the run, South America would be where he’d try first. They both had to pretend that their eyes weren’t on the crowds, _peeled_ for just a glimpse of a familiar face. If they never said anything, then they weren’t doing anything wrong. 

Stiles was tired of it. 

“What will you do if you see them?” He pushed when they were at a night market, having taken a motorbike to a small bay, a modest dock, and a few lanterns dreamily lighting the sand. Peter didn’t have his shades to protect him, and Stiles knew when he needed to dig in. “Let’s say you saw them right now. What would you do?” 

Both of htem paused, taking in their surroundings, a dumb, silly hope that Stiles’s own words would conjure who they were searching for. When no one appeared, Peter sighed. 

“It’s not…” He huffed, toying with one of the buttons on his shirt. It was nearly translucent, two buttons already loose, hanging open. Stiles wondered if he did it on purpose, to draw his eyes to his long neck and light brushing of chest hair. Stiles’s throat was dry when he forced his eyes _back_ on Peter’s face. “I have this fantasy that I’ll be walking and just see them together They won’t see me, we won’t ever speak to each other, but it will be enough.”

Stiles grabbed them both a kebab. Spiced flavor filled his mouth. 

“He’s a murderer, Peter. If Kira’s alive, she’d be held accountable for staying with him.”

Stiles didn’t taste the fire and brimstone that usually accompanied that statement. The drive was gone, years of being locked in a concrete archive room with no outside contact would do that to an agent, he supposed. _Or maybe you were never in it for justice,_ Stiles couldn’t stop the thought, it always wriggled like a slippery eel in the dark recesses of his mind. _Maybe it was just for the title, to prove that you could, and now there’s nothing left._

“You’d deliver them to justice if you found them?” 

Peter sounded bored, like morality was a monotonous lecture in a stuffy classroom. Stiles used to hate it, but after so many South American excursions with him, it made him smile. Stiles lingered at the start of the last dock, leaning on a post. 

“Honestly?” Peter hummed. Stiles checked down the dock, at the sleepy, rickety boats that gently rocked in the water. Fishermen, old and young, tucked in for the night, expertly tossing equipment and nets into the boat. All the way at the end, two shadows didn’t move like the rest. _Not fishermen,_ Stiles thought. One was a tall man, the other was short woman with short, dark hair. She pulled the man in for a kiss, stumbling back into the boat in an adorably clumsy dance that Stiles swore he’d seen before. A hoarse laugh cut across the water. It was familiar. Stiles looked back to Peter. “I don’t know.” 

He wondered if Peter heard it too, if he thought it was a trick of the waves. Peter swayed closer, the wind kicking up, cutting across Stiles’s cheeks, but that wasn’t why he shivered. 

“Hm. Maybe you’re becoming more than just a pretty face.” 

Stiles scoffed and lost sight of the familiar, lumbering figure that disappeared between the boats. 

“Whatever, handsome bastard.” Stiles pushed off the dock and shoved Peter’s shoulder. “Let’s head back, I saw some of your bath bombs, I’m gonna steal one.” 

Stiles got five steps in before Peter was pulling him back, his hand closing around Stiles’s forearm. Stiles raised his eyebrows, ocean air raking through his hair. 

“Handsome?” Peter breathed. 

“Yeah.” Stiles shrugged despite the heat in his cheeks. “You’re handsome.” Peter kept _staring_ at him and Stiles heaved out a dramatic, annoyed sigh. “What, is this brand new information? You just left your shirt unbuttoned by accident, yeah right—”

Peter kissed him before he could finish. 

As far as kisses with Peter, Stiles had imagined it differently, most of his fantasies back at the burning house. In dreams, kisses could be endlessly sleazy, punctuated by groping, grinding, and blood loss. In Brazil, Stiles was shocked by gentleness, a shivering question. A press that lingered, but never pushed. _This is fucked up,_ Stiles thought. 

Waves lapped at the boats. Stiles could have gone down the dock, he _could_ have kicked in door after door to follow the laugh he _knew._ He could have, and he made a conscious choice not to. Stiles wove his fingers in Peter’s stupid shirt. Stiles pulled him closer, cupping Peter’s cheek with his free hand, running his thumb along scar tissue. 

Peter made a broken sound against his lips, like he’d been waiting for this. 

“Good?” The question slipped out, but Stiles needed to ask it, needed to be sure. Peter nodded. Stiles stole a short kiss. “Good.” 

He pulled back, his fingers trailing down Peter’s arm until he reached his hand. He wove their fingers together and pulled, leading Peter away from the docks, and back toward the road. The further they got from the waves, the more traffic, chatter, and nightlife ebbed and flowed around them. The world turned. 

Peter squeezed Stiles’s fingers with a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> This…. Man. This is a monster. To all 3 of you who decided to wait it out until the end… congrats? Haha. I’m sorry about….. All of this haha. The tumblr prompt wouldn’t stop bothering me and I Just kept running with it. I will say… I got some pretty bad nightmares out of it because I’d never written murder in this particular way before, it was very difficult to do. 
> 
> I will say, as dark as this was, as tragic as every piece of it became… I did have a lot of fun figuring out the pacing, figuring out Finstock’s particular brand of murder and mentality ETC… it was really fun. I'm sorry if there are a lot of typos, it was a monster to edit... I just... had to get it done on time.
> 
> This was for the A-Side for day two, Saturday, of Finstock’s Fucked Up Long Weekend! I hope you liked it!
> 
> Also bonus if you figure out who the cameos are in Peter's last section haha.
> 
> I’ll still be active on tumblr for the time being, but there are other ways to find me. [**Here**](http://mia6363.tumblr.com/about) you can see a little breakdown of other places to find me and the other things I do in relation to these fics (journals/behind the scenes, playlists, head canons). [**So click on over** ](http://mia6363.tumblr.com/about)to get the full rundown!


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